| Summary/Abstract |
A key part of the ecomodern discourse of a ‘Good Anthropocene’ is the vision of a ‘high-energy planet’ characterized by universal access to modern energy. Recognizing the crucial historical role that rising energy consumption has played in driving social transformations, ecomodernists imagine a future with substantial global equality of opportunity powered by clean and abundant energy. Whereas traditional environmental thinking has advocated land-intensive distributed forms of renewable energy, ecomodernists have argued that such technologies are fundamentally incompatible with a world in which 7–10 billion people can live modern lives. Instead, ecomodernists believe that only breakthrough innovation can overcome the current political and cultural polarization surrounding climate change and provide a unifying pathway towards climate stability. Yet, resurging populism and nationalism, but also the statist frame of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process, make such a future unlikely as rich countries remain focused on meeting their own domestic emissions targets rather than decarbonizing the global economy as a whole. As a consequence, overall political polarization is bound to increase as radical environmental voices will call for ever harsher demand-side reductions while technocratic elites may come to see solar radiation management as the only feasible way of preventing an irreversible destabilization of the climate system.
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