Crisis slide.

GAME theory is described as 'a branch of applied mathematics that provides tools for analysing situations in which parties, called players, make decisions that are interdependent. This interdependence causes each player to consider the other player's possible decisions in formulating strategy'.

While game theory is primarily a mathematical framework, it has found application in many fields to make optimal rational choices, given a set of circumstances.

If global warming is regarded as an existential threat, then it should be used as the pivot around which all decisions are weighed and made in order to avoid known causes of planetary warming or greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), and to prepare coping strategies to deal with the projected impacts of climate change (adaptation).

From the Stockholm Convention 50 years ago (1972), and the Earth Summit in Rio 30 years ago (1992), it took the global community another 23 years to finally reach an agreement at the Paris Summit (2015) on recognising that climate change is the result of human activity and requires urgent action in reducing emissions to save the planet.

If human security is predicated on the state's ability to meet the food, water and energy needs of the people, then we need to reset our priorities.

However, despite the formal process of negotiations that started in 1995 with the first Conference of Parties (COP1), we are nowhere near keeping temperature increases within the safe threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

While the parties talk, emissions keep increasing and now climate change has outpaced negotiations. At COP26 last year, the critical questions of 'loss and damage' and 'climate finance' were left as unfinished agendas to be taken up at COP27.

Read: COP26 and Pakistan

This does not mean that money is not available for climate correction. It is only an indication of the competing demands on global finance and strategic investments as demonstrated by the assistance for Ukraine - US ($40 billion), EU(pound 2bn) and UK (APS33.5 million).

While reducing GHG emissions is a global compact, the fact remains that the future of the world is in the hands of the top seven emitters: China (10bn MTCO2 or metric tons of carbon dioxide), US (5.4bn MTCO2), India (2.5bn MTCO2), Russia (1.7bn MTCO2), Japan (1.2bn MTCO2) Germany (0.75bn MTCO2). The scientific community agrees that climate change is occurring faster than anticipated, and between ocean acidification, land degradation and threat of...