Related papers: No way out? The double-bind in seeking global pros…
This article derives prognostic expressions for the evolution of globally aggregated economic wealth, productivity, inflation, technological change, innovation and growth. The approach is to treat civilization as an open, non-equilibrium…
Civilization produces knowledge, which acts as the driving force of its development. A macro-model of civilization that accounts for the effect of knowledge production on population, energy consumption and environmental conditions is…
In a recent study (Garrett, 2011), I described theoretical arguments and empirical evidence showing how civilization evolution might be considered from a purely physical basis. One implication is that civilization exhibits the property of…
For those concerned with the long-term value of their accounts, it can be a challenge to plan in the present for inflation-adjusted economic growth over coming decades. Here, I argue that there exists an economic constant that carries…
The Anthropocene is characterized by close interdependencies between the natural Earth system and the human society, posing novel challenges to model development. Here we present a conceptual model describing the long-term coevolution of…
Despite decades of climate policy and rapid improvements in energy efficiency, global CO2 emissions continue to rise, suggesting the presence of structural drivers that offset efficiency gains. Here we identify financial leverage as a key…
Global Climate Models (GCMs) provide forecasts of future climate warming using a wide variety of highly sophisticated anthropogenic CO2 emissions models as input, each based on the evolution of four emissions "drivers": population p,…
The paper has been suggested by two observations: 1) the atmospheric CO$_2$ growth rate is smaller than that ascribed to the emission of fossil fuels combustion, 2) the fossil fuel reserves are finite. The first observation has lead the way…
Once carbon emission neutrality and other sustainability goals have been achieved, a widespread assumption is that economic growth at current rates can be sustained beyond the 21st century. However, even if we achieve these goals, this…
Long-range climate forecasts use integrated assessment models to link the global economy to greenhouse gas emissions. This paper evaluates an alternative economic framework outlined in part 1 of this study (Garrett, 2014) that approaches…
Feeding a larger and wealthier global population without transgressing ecological limits is increasingly challenging, as rising food demand (especially for animal products) intensifies pressure on ecosystems, accelerates deforestation, and…
Classic economic science is reaching the limits of its explanatory powers. Complexity science uses an increasingly larger set of different methods to analyze physical, biological, cultural, social, and economic factors, providing a broader…
Climate change has become intertwined with the global economy. Here, we describe the importance of inertia to continued growth in energy consumption. Drawing from thermodynamic arguments, and using 38 years of available statistics between…
A series of crises, culminating with COVID-19, shows that going Beyond GDP is urgently necessary. Social and environmental degradation are consequences of emphasizing GDP as a measure of progress. This degradation created the conditions for…
Measures of wealth and production have been found to scale superlinearly with the population of a city. Therefore, it makes economic sense for humans to congregate together in dense settlements. A recent model of population dynamics showed…
Growth in the global human population this century will have momentous consequences for societies and the environment. Population growth has come with higher aggregate human welfare, but also climate change and biodiversity loss. Based on…
Probabilistic projections of baseline (with no additional mitigation policies) future carbon emissions are important for sound climate risk assessments. Deep uncertainty surrounds many drivers of projected emissions. Here we use a simple…
Global warming from carbon dioxide (CO2) is known to depend on cumulative CO2 emissions. We introduce a model of global expenditures on limiting cumulative CO2 emissions, taking into account effects of decarbonization and rising global…
We propose a non-linear state-space model to examine the relationship between CO$_2$ emissions, energy sources, and macroeconomic activity, using data from 1971 to 2019. CO$_2$ emissions are modeled as a weighted sum of fossil fuel use,…
Despite well-meaning scenarios that propose global CO2 emissions will decline presented in every IPCC report since 1988, the trend of global CO2 increase continues without significant change. Even if any individual nation manages to flatten…