The Centre de Sciences Humaines is pleased to invite you to the CSH Seminar on:
In Tech We Trust: A History of Technophilia in the Climate Mitigation Expertise
Speaker: Jean-Baptiste Fressoz (CNRS – EHESS)
Discussant: Ashwini K Swain (Sustainable Futures Collaborative, CSH)
To register: Please fill out the registration FORM
CSH Seminars are in hybrid mode. Please pre-register for offline and online registration before Monday, 15 December, 2:00 p.m. IST.
About the Talk:
This presentation examines the technocentric bias in climate mitigation literature, particularly in IPCC Working Group III reports. Rooted in the scientific field’s prioritization of innovation and reinforced by industry-linked funding, this bias overrepresents technological solutions . The IPCC’s cautious, policy-oriented stance amplifies the tendency by promoting “cost-effective” but often unfeasible technologies. Tracing its origins to the 1970s—when nuclear energy was framed as a dual solution to energy scarcity and climate change—the presentation shows how U.S. diplomacy and the sustainable development agenda enabled fossil fuel interests to take foot in mitigation science. This trajectory culminated in the central role of CCS and BECCS in net-zero scenarios.
About the Speaker
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz is a historian of science, technology, and the environment, and a research fellow at the CNRS, affiliated with the Centre de Recherches Historiques (EHESS, Paris). His work critically interrogates the relationship between industrial modernity, ecological transformations, and state rationalities.
He is the author of L’Apocalypse joyeuse (2012) and co-author, with Christophe Bonneuil, of The Shock of the Anthropocene (Verso, 2016). His latest book, More and More and More: An All Consuming History of Energy (Penguin, 2024), traces how modern societies came to relentlessly increase their energy use—not just through fossil fuels but across infrastructures, ideas, and institutions. Fressoz is widely regarded as a key voice in the renewal of environmental and political historiography in France and beyond.
