Amplification of Future Warming Trends due to Feedbacks between Adaptation and Mitigation

Abstract Inclusion of human behavioral changes and societal response as explicit feedback terms is now at the forefront of climate projections. We adopt an integrated socio–energy–ecological–climate model, ISEEC, to quantify the role of feedbacks between warming, mitigation, and adaptation on future warming. The model explicitly allows for two-way natural-social system interactions. Here we address the energy needs for climate adaptation by the most vulnerable population numbering in the billions, an issue overlooked by most if not all climate change studies. Through formulations based on the empirical literature, we quantitatively demonstrate that a widening economic gap, the struggle of the most vulnerable segment of society to adapt to climate change, and the lack of just transition to clean energy sources, can all lead to a substantial increase in primary energy generation, CO2 emissions and an additional warming of 0.5-2ºC, through a cascade of amplifying feedbacks. The behavioral transformation of the top billion in providing clean energy technology to the bottom (poorest) billions emerges as a major factor in breaking the adaptation-mitigation feedback loop.