All 3 Uses of

consequence
in
Oryx and Crake

The whole world is now one vast uncontrolled experiment — the way it always was, Crake would have said — and the doctrine of unintended consequences is in full spate.†
p. 228.6

consequences = results

The customers never knew whether they'd get exactly what they'd paid for; in addition to which, there were too many unintended consequences.†
p. 304.5 *

Definitions:

(1) (consequence as in: a direct consequence of)
a result of something (often an undesired side effect)
(2) (consequence as in: of little consequence)
importance or relevance
(3) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
meaning too rare to warrant focus:

In classic literature, consequential may refer to someone with too much feeling of self-importance as when Dickens wrote "Because he's a proud, haughty, consequential, turned-up-nosed peacock."

Self-consequence was used in a similar manner, but is more easily understood by modern readers since important is one of the modern senses of consequence.

Another classic sense of consequent that is similar to importance or significance refers to "material wealth or prominence" as when Jane Austen wrote: "They had each had money, but their marriages had made a material difference in their degree of consequence."