A slower-than-needed renewable energy transition could weaken the world’s motivation to cut carbon emissions, study warns

A new study suggests that delaying the expansion of renewable energy might unintentionally reduce the world’s long term motivation to address climate change. The research finds that while the social cost of carbon usually rises as climate damages grow, it may suddenly fall once global warming passes a critical threshold. This drop in the social cost of carbon would weaken the economic incentive to reduce emissions and could speed up global warming.

The study, published in Energy and Environment Nexus, uses an improved integrated assessment model to explore how society responds when climate damages and renewable energy costs evolve together. The results highlight that after a certain point, the damage caused by climate change becomes so large that reducing emissions no longer provides enough economic benefit to outweigh the cost of deploying renewable energy. As a result, the share of renewable energy in the global energy supply could unexpectedly decline.

The research shows that delaying strong climate action until after mid century greatly increases the risk of this outcome. When mitigation begins early, renewable energy adoption grows quickly and keeps warming under better control. But when action starts too late, climate damages rise rapidly while the economic motivation to reduce emissions weakens. This feedback loop could push the global energy system toward greater dependence on fossil fuels, even as climate risks intensify.

The study also finds that once the social cost of carbon starts to fall, reversing this trend may be extremely difficult without noneconomic interventions such as strong regulations or rapid technological breakthroughs. This pattern represents a socioeconomic tipping point that is different from the physical tipping points in Earth’s climate system.

To help avoid this scenario, the study proposes an early warning system that monitors two key indicators at the same time: the damage caused by climate change and the global share of renewable energy. A combination of rising climate damage and slowing renewable energy growth could signal that the world is approaching a dangerous point at which mitigation incentives begin to disappear.

The findings stress that delaying strong efforts to phase out fossil fuels increases both climate risks and the likelihood of crossing this socioeconomic threshold. The author calls for immediate action to accelerate renewable energy deployment and for improved monitoring within the Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement. Early detection of declining mitigation incentives could help decision makers act before the opportunity to avoid irreversible climate impacts begins to close.

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Journal reference: Wang R. 2025. A slower-than-needed scale-up of renewable energy might reduce the incentive for mitigation. Energy & Environment Nexus 1: e011  

https://www.maxapress.com/article/doi/10.48130/een-0025-0012  

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About Energy & Environment Nexus:
Energy & Environment Nexus is an open-access journal publishing high-quality research on the interplay between energy systems and environmental sustainability, including renewable energy, carbon mitigation, and green technologies.

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