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The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XII, 2020

Everybody knows what must be done if the world is to continue to be a
liveable place, if our homes are not to be invaded by the sea … Everybody
knows ... and yet we are powerless, even the most powerful among us.

We go about our daily business through habit, as though we were in the
grip of forces that have overwhelmed our will; we see shocking and
monstrous things happening all around us and we avert our eyes;
we surrender ourselves willingly to whatever it is that has us in its
power.

Ignoring the issue of denial, there are three difficulties in gaining political
commitment to action on climate change. The first is the classic problem of
collective action. For each player, there is no incentive to take action individually
because there will be no pay-off unless all other players take the same action.
The second is timing. We have to incur the costs today to prevent or mitigate
things that will happen in the future. And until recently that future was usually
placed “by the end of this century,” two or three generations away. The third is
uncertainty. As long as the forecasts are not firm, there is some logic in betting
against them, in doing nothing rather than incurring cost.

Hence, for every country, the short-term logic is to do (next to) nothing.
Political leaders cannot persuade their electoral constituencies, or (perhaps more
importantly) their corporate backers, to approve investments associated with
climate change. The classic example is Australia. As a country, it is already
suffering the preliminary effects of climate change, and the predictions are
terrible. But no political leader has been able to achieve any significant action,
partly because there is no mass support, but more importantly because the
Australian economy depends heavily on coal, and the lobby of the coal industry
is extremely strong.

For many countries, including those in Southeast Asia, there are some
additional perceived reasons for inaction:

Southeast Asia is a minor contributor to global emissions (12% of the total).
Why should it invest in reduction schemes when the impact will be
cancelled out by the big emitters’ increasing emissions?

The natural environment is remarkably rich, and its exploitation has
provided the major basis of the economies until very recently. This habit
is hard to break.

150 Climate Change and Inequality in Southeast Asia:
Review, Prospects, Priorities

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