In his 1968 paper, Garrett Hardin talked about the tragedy of the commons. He claimed that the rational individual behavior, as it try to satisfy self-interest desires, would finally consume and deplete shared limited resources although it is against public favor. This idea has created a debate among scholars, some people acknowledges his idea, some have used it to support private ownership and some have been against it.

But is it really the problem with commons or uncommons which is causing trouble around the world? Let's take a look at climate change. Deforestation as a tragedy in commons is only contributing less than 20% to CO2 emissions while the other 80% is coming from our attempt to consume private goods and services. 

Within the science and policy communities, carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation have been estimated to account for about 20% of global anthropogenic CO₂ emissions^{2, 3, 4, 5}. A recalculation of this fraction using the same methods, but updated estimates on carbon emissions from both deforestation and fossil fuel combustion suggests that in 2008, the relative contribution of CO₂ emissions from deforestation and forest degradation was substantially smaller, around 12%. As a consequence, the maximum carbon savings from reductions in forest decline are likely to be lower than expected.

G.R.van der Werf, D.C.Morton, R.S.DeFries, J.G.J.Olivier, P.S.Kasibhatla, R.B.Jackson, G.J.Collatz and J.T.Randerson (2009). "CO₂ emissions from forest loss". Nature Geoscience 2: 737–738. doi:10.1038/ngeo671

So if we take the deforestation as a symbol for depleting commons and transport representing uncommons it is clear that the second one has a greater role in the current increase in CO2 concentration. What I am trying to say is that it does not matter whether it is about the common or private ownership, we are allocating our resources well.

What is really interesting for me is that we are trying use a market system (like CO2 pricing/tax) to solve a problem which is caused by market itself but in another form.

Meanwhile there I read an article today using the idea of tragedy of the commons to talk about climate change from a different prespective. The author writes:

What the international community is facing is a classic “tragedy of the commons” problem: it is in every nation’s short-term individual best interest to emit, but, the collective result of each nation’s self-interested actions translates into a less-desirable outcome for all parties involved. And according to some, the only way to solve this tragedy is through strict management of the commons (emissions in this case) through regulatory bodies. While this may work for a pasture (Garrett Hardin’s metaphor), global emissions are decidedly more complicated; no credible international body exists with the ability to act impartially and effectively. And even if such a body did exist, their task—namely overseeing and enforcing international emissions laws—would be a regulatory nightmare.

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