Current climate plans might be amplifying disorder by increasing complexity faster than countries can adapt to it

But beneath the rhetoric lies an uncomfortable truth.

The global climate strategy, as currently designed and sequenced, is generating the very disorder, fragility and instability it seeks to avert. It is pushing societies into what can be called ‘the entropy trap’: a condition in which well-intentioned transitions increase systemic complexity faster than they increase the capacity to manage it.

This is not an ideological argument. It is structural and, at its foundation, thermodynamic: Modern economies are vast systems of continuous energy transformation. Every transaction—running a factory, streaming a video or irrigating a field—is a thermodynamic process. And thermodynamics has an unforgiving constant: energy transformations tend to increase entropy, or disorder, unless supported by sufficient buffers, redundancies and stabilizing structures.

For two centuries, advanced economies kept entropy in check by relying on dense, stable and dispatchable energy sources: coal, oil and gas. These fuels powered predictable grids, scalable industrial systems and steady growth that built state capacity and social resilience.

The global climate agenda now seeks to replace these dense energy sources with diffuse, intermittent and geographically dispersed ones—solar and wind. This shift is essential in the long run. But the way it is being pursued—rapidly, uniformly and often prematurely—adds complexity before countries have built the institutions, grids and financial systems needed to absorb it. When complexity outruns capacity, entropy rises.

This is not theoretical. It is already happening: In the Netherlands, rooftop solar adoption has surged. But distribution networks have not kept pace. Utilities have begun refusing new solar connections, producers are curtailed even when the sun is abundant and industrial users face rising congestion costs.

Here is the paradox: green abundance is creating infrastructural scarcity. The system cannot handle the bi-directional flows and volatility that come with a diffuse energy base. Solar panels are not the problem; the sequencing is.

Spain offers another warning. This April, widespread power disruptions occurred not because of insufficient renewable generation, but because its grid could not maintain stability under high levels of intermittent supply with inadequate balancing and storage capacity.

If a mature grid in a high-income, technologically sophisticated nation struggles under these conditions, what happens when countries with far weaker infrastructure are pushed to adopt similar pathways prematurely?

Across Europe, Australia, and parts of the US, we see the same pattern: curtailment rising, storage lagging, balancing costs increasing, volatility in wholesale markets growing and transmission bottlenecks multiplying. These are not failures of renewable energy. They are failures of timing, sequencing and system design—symptoms of entropy accumulation.

If advanced economies are encountering fragility under rapid renewable deployment, the risks for developing countries are even greater. Their grids are weaker, their fiscal space tighter, their industrial systems more power-sensitive and their societies more vulnerable to shocks.

Most developing countries operate grids with limited redundancy, thin transmission networks, minimal storage and inadequate balancing mechanisms. Introducing large volumes of intermittent energy can undermine reliability, industrial competitiveness and public trust.

The transition also demands enormous upfront capital investment—capital that must otherwise fund health, education and infrastructure. Manufacturing, the backbone of development, depends on stable baseload power. Intermittency hinders investment, undermines export competitiveness and poses risks to job creation. And because poor households spend a higher share of income on energy, price spikes or outages carry greater social and political consequences.

In short, the current mitigation-first model accelerates entropy in developing countries by increasing complexity without increasing the buffers needed to manage it.

Some argue that developing countries should restrain growth in the name of climate mitigation. This view misunderstands both development economics and thermodynamics.

Growth is how societies build the capacity needed to reduce entropy. It is the mechanism through which they expand grid resilience, strengthen public finances, build adaptation infrastructure, invest in technology and create stable political and social systems. High-income countries built this capacity over decades of fossil-fuel-driven industrialization.

Expecting developing countries to leapfrog directly to high-complexity, low-density energy systems without similar buffers is unrealistic and inequitable.

Growth is not the obstacle to climate action. It is the precondition for a stable transition: Recognizing the entropy trap does not mean abandoning ambition. It means sequencing the transition coherently and designing it to reduce, rather than amplify, systemic fragility. Adaptation must come first, as most climate-related losses in developing countries stem from vulnerability, rather than emissions.

Adaptation—coastal protection, heat resilience, water systems, climate-smart agriculture and so on—reduces entropy by increasing stability and lowering risk.

Renewables must expand, but in proportion to grid readiness, storage availability, industrial needs and fiscal capacity. Uniform timelines across countries with vastly different capabilities increase disorder, not resilience. Technology sharing—covering advanced grid software, power electronics, storage solutions and transmission innovations—is essential. Without it, developing countries cannot manage the complexity of modern energy systems.

Finally, finance must be restructured. What developing countries need is not more project loans, but large-scale risk-sharing arrangements, including sovereign guarantees from advanced economies and deeper capital pools anchored by multilateral institutions. Premature transition without financial stabilisers increases entropy; targeted guarantees reduce it.

The core message for CoP-30 is clear: climate goals cannot be met by pushing the world’s most vulnerable societies into higher entropy. A mitigation-first, transition-fast model risks destabilizing grids, slowing industrialization, straining public finances and weakening resilience. The alternative is a climate framework grounded in realism: growth first, adaptation immediately, renewables scaled as capacity expands and technology and finance aligned with developmental needs.

The second law of thermodynamics is not a barrier to climate ambition. It is a warning. Systems that increase complexity without increasing stabilizers will fail.

A stable climate requires stable societies. And stability requires development—powered by growth, supported by technology and financed with fairness.

These are the author’s personal views.

The author is chief economic advisor to the Government of India.