By Muhammad Junaid PIDE

The Tragedy of Commons.

The tragedy of commons “an axe to grind” is the critical situation that emerges when
multiple individuals begin acting independently in their own self-interest it may lead to the
ultimate exhaustion and depletion of the resources. This usually happens because an
individual who is a rational consumer will always try to maximize his utility or benefit,
leading to his aggravating exploitation of the resources. Hence, the destructions occur due
to the exploitation and overconsumption of the resources commonly pooled by individuals
or groups of individuals. The damages by innocent due to their rational action inflicted on
the environment negatively via the tragedy of commons.
The term "commons" refers to a type of property that is neither private nor public, but
rather is jointly held by community members for the benefit of the community, who control
access and use by formal regulations, social customs, or other social institutions. In
economics, it is often assumed that individuals and businesses act rationally and in their
own self-interest and that markets can efficiently allocate resources. However, this
assumption can break down when it comes to common resources because there is often no
mechanism for limiting or controlling access to the resource. In such cases, individuals and
businesses may act irrationally and overuse the resources, leading to depletion or
degradation. Additionally, traditional economics tends to overlook the negative
externalities associated with the exploitation of common resources. These negative
externalities occur when the costs of resource use are not borne by the users themselves
but by others, for example, the pollution of a river by a factory that uses the river as a
source of water. These externalities can make it difficult to use market-based solutions to
manage common resources in a sustainable way.
Here traditional economics may fail to grasp the exploitation of common resources because
it assumes that individuals and businesses will act rationally and that markets can
efficiently allocate resources when in reality, the tragedy of the commons demonstrates
that these assumptions do not always hold true and that government regulation or
collective action may be necessary to manage shared resources in a sustainable way.
Developing nations, which often have fewer economic and technological resources, are
often more heavily impacted by the tragedy of the commons like Pakistan, than developed
nations. Developed nations have more resources to invest in pollution control and
conservation efforts, while developing nations may lack the infrastructure and funding to
address these issues. Additionally, developed nations often have a greater ability to export
the negative consequences of their resource use, such as pollution, to developing nations.
This can create tension between developed and developing nations, as developing nations
may feel that developed nations are not taking responsibility for their impact on shared
resources.
 The pollution caused by developed nations like European Countries, the USA, and China in
an unlimited amount deteriorated our common resource, i.e. the atmosphere. A
consequence of pollution may be beneficial for them but at the mass level, it created a mess
in the form of climate change. Pakistan is one of the developing countries that is suffering
the worst in the present arena of climate change for which the global communities are
responsible and all these happened due to the lack of cooperation and coordination at the
global level. Instead of compensation from global elites and responsible countries, our
country is still in a harsh and critical situation. Because of the recent floods in 2022 too
many destructions occurred in the whole region of the country, and thousands of lives
were wasted with the loss of infrastructure like roads, houses, hospitals, etc. Agriculture
sector is severely affected as thousands of acres of land become barren with the loss of
crops to which the livelihood of people depends on. The effect of climate change is so much
severe that the weather pattern has totally changed now, with severe heat strokes during
summers, unexpected rainfalls, and floods. How do we tackle all such situations as
extremely hot weather is the most important issue caused due to the problem of climate
change?