Green energy is entering a rapid adoption phase, driven by falling costs and tightening regulations. But how does the broader economy respond to further use of carbon pricing instruments? We use an agent-based model to show that the answer is surprisingly non-linear. There exists a critical carbon price beyond which energy producers suddenly switch fuels, emissions drop sharply, and (under the right redistribution) the economy keeps growing. Additionally, we explore how it could be detected in real time using complexity-based early warning signals. The findings raise a pointed question for policymakers: Is there necessarily a tradeoff between growth, inequality, and sustainability?
About the speaker
Isaak Mengesha is a computational scientist working at the intersection of economics, complex systems, and policy. He completed his PhD at the University of Amsterdam's Computational Science Lab, where he built ABMs of the energy transitions, poverty dynamics, and social norm formation. His recent work in AI governance, at the Centre for the Governance of AI and Arcadia Impact, focused on the differential impacts of labor automation across countries and institutional design for mitigating catastrophic failures.
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