Climate change, technological revolutions and affluence: combining evolutionary and limits-to-growth theories

This paper analyzes the relationship between climate change, technological change and affluence. Our expected contribution is to provide a deeper conceptualization of technological change, while taking into account ecological limits, justice and democratic concerns. To this end, we analyze and try to combine evolutionary theories of long-run economic development and limits-to-growth theories, i.e., post-growth and degrowth. We suggest that technological change, even if directed by government policies in the “right directions”, is unlikely to rapidly reduce global emissions. Hence, a significant reduction in global affluence is as necessary as a faster low-carbon transition in order to limit climate change, stay within ecological limits and achieve a more just transition. We also suggest that the lowcarbon transition can be conceptualized as an ecological technological revolution, which can originate a new phase of economic development through major qualitative changes of socio-economic systems in dominant technologies, sectors, firms, institutions and societal values. Finally, we propose that a cap on affluence can be conceptualized as a technology cap, which can accelerate and shape a lowcarbon transition by activating two processes. The first is an endogenous process of co-evolution or cumulative causation between minimalist demand and investment in ecological technologies. The second is a process of debate and democratic definition of an ecological technological paradigm, which can enable socio-institutional actors to act as exogenous unlocking factors. Both these processes, and the forces that shape them, should enable the qualitative evolution of socio-economic systems towards ecology, without necessarily produce their quantitative growth.