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Efficiency traps beyond the climate crisis: exploration–exploitation trade-offs and rebound effects
Higher levels of economic activity are often accompanied by higher energy use and consumption of natural resources. As fossil fuels still account for 80% of the global energy mix, energy consumption remains closely linked to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and thus to climate change. Under the assump...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10505854/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37718604 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0405 |
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author | Segovia-Martin, Jose Creutzig, Felix Winters, James |
author_facet | Segovia-Martin, Jose Creutzig, Felix Winters, James |
author_sort | Segovia-Martin, Jose |
collection | PubMed |
description | Higher levels of economic activity are often accompanied by higher energy use and consumption of natural resources. As fossil fuels still account for 80% of the global energy mix, energy consumption remains closely linked to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and thus to climate change. Under the assumption of sufficiently elastic demand, this reality of global economic development based on permanent growth of economic activity, brings into play the Jevons Paradox, which hypothesises that increases in the efficiency of resource use leads to increases in resource consumption. Previous research on the rebound effects has limitations, including a lack of studies on the connection between reinforcement learning and environmental consequences. This paper develops a mathematical model and computer simulator to study the effects of micro-level exploration–exploitation strategies on efficiency, consumption and sustainability, considering different levels of direct and indirect rebound effects. Our model shows how optimal exploration–exploitation strategies for increasing efficiency can lead to unsustainable development patterns if they are not accompanied by demand reduction measures, which are essential for mitigating climate change. Moreover, our paper speaks to the broader issue of efficiency traps by highlighting how indirect rebound effects not only affect primary energy (PE) consumption and GHG emissions, but also resource consumption in other domains. By linking these issues together, our study sheds light on the complexities and interdependencies involved in achieving sustainable development goals. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Climate change adaptation needs a science of culture’. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10505854 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | The Royal Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-105058542023-09-19 Efficiency traps beyond the climate crisis: exploration–exploitation trade-offs and rebound effects Segovia-Martin, Jose Creutzig, Felix Winters, James Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci Part III: Macro Higher levels of economic activity are often accompanied by higher energy use and consumption of natural resources. As fossil fuels still account for 80% of the global energy mix, energy consumption remains closely linked to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and thus to climate change. Under the assumption of sufficiently elastic demand, this reality of global economic development based on permanent growth of economic activity, brings into play the Jevons Paradox, which hypothesises that increases in the efficiency of resource use leads to increases in resource consumption. Previous research on the rebound effects has limitations, including a lack of studies on the connection between reinforcement learning and environmental consequences. This paper develops a mathematical model and computer simulator to study the effects of micro-level exploration–exploitation strategies on efficiency, consumption and sustainability, considering different levels of direct and indirect rebound effects. Our model shows how optimal exploration–exploitation strategies for increasing efficiency can lead to unsustainable development patterns if they are not accompanied by demand reduction measures, which are essential for mitigating climate change. Moreover, our paper speaks to the broader issue of efficiency traps by highlighting how indirect rebound effects not only affect primary energy (PE) consumption and GHG emissions, but also resource consumption in other domains. By linking these issues together, our study sheds light on the complexities and interdependencies involved in achieving sustainable development goals. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Climate change adaptation needs a science of culture’. The Royal Society 2023-11-06 2023-09-18 /pmc/articles/PMC10505854/ /pubmed/37718604 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0405 Text en © 2023 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Part III: Macro Segovia-Martin, Jose Creutzig, Felix Winters, James Efficiency traps beyond the climate crisis: exploration–exploitation trade-offs and rebound effects |
title | Efficiency traps beyond the climate crisis: exploration–exploitation trade-offs and rebound effects |
title_full | Efficiency traps beyond the climate crisis: exploration–exploitation trade-offs and rebound effects |
title_fullStr | Efficiency traps beyond the climate crisis: exploration–exploitation trade-offs and rebound effects |
title_full_unstemmed | Efficiency traps beyond the climate crisis: exploration–exploitation trade-offs and rebound effects |
title_short | Efficiency traps beyond the climate crisis: exploration–exploitation trade-offs and rebound effects |
title_sort | efficiency traps beyond the climate crisis: exploration–exploitation trade-offs and rebound effects |
topic | Part III: Macro |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10505854/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37718604 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0405 |
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