Unintended Consequences of Climate Technologies

• In Event: Climate Technologies and Unintended Consequences 2

Abstract

This paper lists and explores the unexpected or expected unintended consequences of some technologies developed to reduce climate change or mitigate the effects of climate change. These unintended consequences can be technological or social. For example, biofuels or biochar can lead to dispossession, deforestation, or increased food prices. Windfarms can disrupt people's sense of place and their environment at the same time that we are asking them to relate more carefully to the environment. Indeed the focus on climate change technologies can distract people from the other massive ecological problems we face. The lack of profitability also undermines the prospects of needed CO2 removal technologies.

It is suggested that all the problems of these technologies are magnified by normal capitalist distortions of information, and through a naïve faith in a market in which quality wins out. The paper suggests that technologies tend to present unintended consequences which disrupt any smooth transition and this is intensely influence by social factors, such as power relations and economic organisation.

Author

• Jonathan Paul Marshall, UTS