An Integrated Approach to Climate Change, Income Distribution, Employment, and Economic Growth*

A demand-driven growth model involving capital accumulation and the dynamics of
greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration is set up to examine macroeconomic issues raised by global
warming, e.g. effects on output and employment of rising levels of GHG; offsets by mitigation;
relationships among energy use and labor productivity, income distribution, and growth; the
economic significance of the Jevons and other paradoxes; sustainable consumption and possible
reductions in employment; and sources of instability and cyclicality implicit in the twodimensional
dynamical system. The emphasis is on the combination of biophysical limits and Post-
Keynesian growth theory and the qualitative patterns of system adjustment and the dynamics that
emerge.