Editing IPCC:AR6/SR15/Chapter-4 (section)

== 4.4.4.1 The nature of technological innovations ==

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Technological systems have their own dynamics. New technologies have been described as emerging as part of a ‘socio-technical system’ that is integrated with social structures and that itself evolves over time (Geels and Schot, 2007) <sup>[[#fn:r1238|1238]]</sup> . This progress is cumulative and accelerating (Kauffman, 2002; Arthur, 2009) <sup>[[#fn:r1239|1239]]</sup> . To illustrate such a process of co-evolution: the progress of computer simulation enables us to better understand climate, agriculture, and material sciences, contributing to upgrading food production and quality, microscale manufacturing techniques, and leading to much faster computing technologies, resulting, for instance, in better performing photovoltaic (PV) cells.

A variety of technological developments have and will contribute to 1.5°C-consistent climate action or the lack of it. They can do this, for example, in the form of applications such as smart lighting systems, more efficient drilling techniques that make fossil fuels cheaper, or precision agriculture. As discussed in Section 4.3.1, costs of PV (IEA, 2017f) <sup>[[#fn:r1240|1240]]</sup> and batteries (Nykvist and Nilsson, 2015) <sup>[[#fn:r1241|1241]]</sup> have sharply dropped. In addition, costs of fuel cells (Iguma and Kidoshi, 2015; Wei et al., 2017) <sup>[[#fn:r1242|1242]]</sup> and shale gas and oil (Wang et al., 2014; Mills, 2015) <sup>[[#fn:r1243|1243]]</sup> have come down as a consequence of innovation.

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