Abstract
Through their consumption behavior, households are responsible for 72% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, they are key actors in reaching the 1.5 °C goal under the Paris Agreement. However, the possible contribution and position of households in climate policies is neither well understood, nor do households receive sufficiently high priority in current climate policy strategies. This paper investigates how behavioral change can achieve a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in European high-income countries. It uses theoretical thinking and some core results from the HOPE research project, which investigated household preferences for reducing emissions in four European cities in France, Germany, Norway and Sweden. The paper makes five major points: First, car and plane mobility, meat and dairy consumption, as well as heating are the most dominant components of household footprints. Second, household living situations (demographics, size of home) greatly influence the household potential to reduce their footprint, even more than country or city location. Third, household decisions can be sequential and temporally dynamic, shifting through different phases such as childhood, adulthood, and illness. Fourth, short term voluntary efforts will not be sufficient by themselves to reach the drastic reductions needed to achieve the 1.5 °C goal; instead, households need a regulatory framework supporting their behavioral changes. Fifth, there is a mismatch between the roles and responsibilities conveyed by current climate policies and household perceptions of responsibility. We then conclude with further recommendations for research and policy.
Highlights
Explanation of how the interview works, what are the objectives, presentation of the interviewer etc. 2
These are: (1) that car and plane mobility, meat and dairy consumption, and heating dominate footprints; (2) that household living situations or demographics influence preferences and possibilities for greenhouse gas reduction while there is little difference between countries; (3) that household decisions can be sequential and temporally dynamic; (4) that voluntary efforts will not be sufficient by themselves to achieve drastic reductions; and (5) that there is a mismatch between the roles and responsibilities conveyed by current climate policies and household perceptions of responsibility
Rather than focusing mainly on household appliances, heat or electricity provision, our results suggest research and policy should deal with cars, air traffic, and eating meat
Summary
Household consumption contributes to 72% of global greenhouse gas emissions (with the remainder coming from public and nongovernmental and financial sources) [1]. Very steep reductions in emissions are needed if the global community is to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, which translate into a reduction of emissions from 40 gigatons of carbon dioxide in 2020 to 5 gigatons in 2050, and eventually reach a level of “net zero” by 2100 This necessitates that emissions must halve every decade in perpetuity until the middle of the century, and cross the line and continue with implementing so-called negative emissions measures until the end of the century [12]. We must accelerate transitions toward “deep decarbonisation” [13] and a “post carbon society” [14] by 2050, if not sooner Due to such stringent targets, climate change mitigation will increasingly affect households and their lifestyles. Potentially available in even more efficient production systems and negative emission technologies, and in household lifestyles and individual behavioral change [18,19]. We wanted, by means of involving household representatives in the HOPE climate game, to trigger deep reflections on public acceptance as to how such policy interventions best should be carried out with respect to choosing between “carrots, sticks and sermons” [24]
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