Fighting climate change can result in the “private solution trap”

Given options on fighting climate change, a majority prefer to spend their money on private solutions rather than collective action, according to a new study across 34 countries, and led in Canada by Toronto Metropolitan University’s Prof. Fei Song.

Choosing private rather than public climate change solutions runs the risk of aggravating existing inequities in the impact of climate change, notes the study (external link, opens in new window) , which was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The channeling of resources into localized or private solutions is known as “the private solution trap.”

“Collective action problems emerge when individual incentives and group interests are misaligned, as in the case of climate change. One of the main goals of international climate change negotiations is to distribute the economic burden of limiting global warming,” said Prof. Song, of TMU’s Ted Rogers School of Management.

Some countries are wealthier than others and may be better able to invest in local adaptation – a ‘private solution’ – as an alternative to global mitigation – a ‘public solution.’ Public solutions could include things like flood protection, water management systems and seeding clouds to trigger rainfall. Private solutions could include measures to evade extreme weather, enhanced air conditioning or hire private firefighters.

Prof. Song and her colleagues in various countries each assembled multiple panels of four – two participants allotted “wealthy resources” and two “poor” players with less wealth to invest. Overall, over 7,500 participated in the study. Some 47% of participants opted for private solutions, with “wealthy” players choosing private options by 62%. “During the game, rich players in total contributed proportionally less to public solutions than poor players in almost every country,” said Prof. Song. “On average, they contributed 31.3% of their wealth whereas poor players contributed 39.8% of theirs.”

Widespread adoption of private solutions undermines the provision of collectively optimal public solutions, while also increasing wealth inequality and leaving the poor unprotected against the impact of climate change, said Prof. Song, who specializes in the study of behavioral decision-making.

“Private solutions represent a trap,” Prof. Song said. “They tend to be less socially efficient than public solutions and undermine support for the latter; and they are more affordable for some than others and exacerbate existing inequalities.

"The research sheds light on why consensus in collective climate change action can be challenging. Understanding the dynamics in decision making may help with the development of better strategies for building a more equitable approach to climate change mitigation,” Prof. Song said.Funding for the Canadian portion of this study was provided by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. The study was led by Prof. Eugene Malthouse at the University of Nottingham’s School of Economics.

Malthouse, E., Pilgrim, C., Sgroi, D., Accerenzi, M., Alfonso, A., Ashraf, R. U., Baard, M., Banerjee, S., ... Song, F., ...  & Hills, T. (2026). The private solution trap in collective action problems across 34 nations (external link, opens in new window) , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A., 123 (12), e2504632123.