Abstract
It is increasingly clear that averting ecological breakdown will require drastic changes to contemporary human society and the global economy embedded within it. On the other hand, the basic material needs of billions of people across the planet remain unmet. Here, we develop a simple, bottom-up model to estimate a practical minimal threshold for the final energy consumption required to provide decent material livings to the entire global population. We find that global final energy consumption in 2050 could be reduced to the levels of the 1960s, despite a population three times larger. However, such a world requires a massive rollout of advanced technologies across all sectors, as well as radical demand-side changes to reduce consumption – regardless of income – to levels of sufficiency. Sufficiency is, however, far more materially generous in our model than what those opposed to strong reductions in consumption often assume.
Highlights
The annual energy use of late-Palaeolithic foragers is estimated to have been around 5 GJ per person annually (Smil, 2017) – the sum of food-energy metabolised plus biomass for cooking
With a combination of the most efficient technologies available and radical demand-side transformations that reduce excess consumption to sufficiency-levels, the final energy requirements for providing decent living standards to the global population in 2050 could be over 60% lower than consumption today
The input–output data of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), for 119 countries (Oswald et al, 2020). This gives an indication of current energy use as compared to the minimum our model suggests is possible while still providing decent living, but the disclaimer given in Section 2.3 must again be noted
Summary
The annual energy use of late-Palaeolithic foragers is estimated to have been around 5 GJ per person annually (Smil, 2017) – the sum of food-energy metabolised plus biomass for cooking. Others have used the same ideas to highlight the hedonic-treadmill of consumption, where people constantly adapt to improved material circumstances, so that well-being stagnates despite increasing wealth From this perspective, true happiness can only be obtained by turning away from the world of positional consumption and insatiable desires (O'Neill, 2008; Jackson, 2005). True happiness can only be obtained by turning away from the world of positional consumption and insatiable desires (O'Neill, 2008; Jackson, 2005) This ‘adaptivity’ has been criticised for its contrary effects: when people adapt to difficult circumstances this can leave subjective well-being measures obscuring systemic injustices (Lamb and Steinberger, 2017). Such adaptivity is a highly desirable characteristic, given how much of the external circumstances of humans’ lives are beyond their control, and how fleeting desires can be – things the Buddha taught millennia ago
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