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Delay-induced rebounds in CO2 emissions and critical time-scales to meet global warming targets

While climate science debates are focused on the attainment of peak anthropogenic CO2emissions and policy tools to reduce peak temperatures, the human-energy-climate s ystem can hold“rebound” surprises beyond this peak. Following the second industrial revolution, global per capita CO2emissions (cc) experienced a punctuated growth of about 100% every 60 years, mainly attributable totechnological development and its global spread. A model of the human-energy-climate s ystem capa-ble of reproducing past punctuated dynamics shows that rebounds in global CO2emissions emergedue to delays intrinsic to the diļ¬€usion of innovations.

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