Abstract
Cities and urban consumers play a central role in the transition to a decarbonized society. Building on existing studies that identify the significant contributions of lifestyle changes, this study proposes a practical methodology for modeling and exploring city-specific carbon footprint reduction pathways through lifestyle changes to decarbonization. It uses an input–output approach with mixed-unit consumption data and the concept of adoption rates, which is applicable to multiple cities with widely available subnational household consumption data. This paper illustrates the use of this methodology by exploring the consumption-based mitigation pathways of 52 Japanese cities with 65 lifestyle change options covering mobility, housing, food, consumer goods, and leisure domains. The results revealed that city-specific impacts of a variety of lifestyle change options can differ by as much as a factor of five among cities, even in the urban context within the same country. Due to this city-level heterogeneity, the priority options of decarbonized lifestyles, such as among shared mobility, low-carbon diets, and longevity of consumer goods, have shifted between cities. The analysis suggests that ambitious urban lifestyle changes can potentially reduce their carbon footprints to meet the 1.5 °C target. However, due to the overlaps of mitigation potentials between multiple lifestyle change options, the necessary levels of adoption and coverage are extensive (i.e. adoption rates of 0.6–0.9). Importantly, adopting lifestyle changes with an efficiency strategy (e.g. the introduction of end-use technologies) or sufficiency strategy (e.g. behavioral changes in consumption amounts and modes) alone is not enough; the only way to succeed is through the combination of both strategies. This paper calls for a target-based exploration and identification of city-specific priorities of lifestyle change options to facilitate consumption-oriented mitigation policies and stakeholder actions to address the climate impacts of urban consumption.
Highlights
Cities are at the center of the global economy, and urban consumers have an enormous direct and indirect impact on climate change
Building on existing studies that identify the significant contributions of lifestyle changes, this study proposes a practical methodology for modeling and exploring city-specific carbon footprint reduction pathways through lifestyle changes to decarbonization
This paper proposed a practical methodology for modeling and exploring carbon footprint reduction pathways through urban lifestyle changes to meet the 1.5 ◦C target in multiple cities
Summary
Cities are at the center of the global economy, and urban consumers have an enormous direct and indirect impact on climate change. Their decisions affect conditions far beyond city boundaries (Bailey et al2019). Local governments have begun to take a leading role in decarbonization commitments, with nearly 2000 jurisdictions declaring a climate emergency (CED 2020). These declarations tend to address territorial emissions, while failing to consider emissions occurring outside the given territory caused by territorial final demand. Given that a majority of goods and services consumed in cities are produced outside the city, consumptionbased carbon accounting is a useful tool for measuring and managing the realistic impact of cities on climate change (Peters 2010a, 2010b, Wright et al 2011, Bailey et al 2019)
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