The 1.5-degree lifestyles programme investigates the impacts of consumption and lifestyles on climate change and introduces a science-based approach to link concrete changes in lifestyles to measurable impacts on climate change. This work is central in our ability to meet the 1.5-degree aspirational target of the Paris Agreement.
Most policy approaches for meeting climate targets rely on the hope for new technologies – such as negative emissions technologies – and on changes in production. This often underestimates the contributions of lifestyle changes. The 1.5-degree lifestyles work fills a gap in the existing research by establishing global targets for lifestyle carbon footprints, examining current consumption patterns and their impacts on footprints, and evaluating potential reduction impacts of low-carbon lifestyle options.
This new report is based on data from Canada, Finland, United Kingdom, Japan, China, Turkey, South Africa, Brazil, India, and Indonesia. It analyses these countries for priority high-impact consumption domains, and for emissions gaps between current and target levels of consumption. It then suggests low-carbon lifestyles actions and estimates their potential for reducing impacts.
Crucially, the report outlines potential scenarios for living within the 2030 target of 2.5-tons per person, showing that we need both systems change and behavior change if we are to achieve this critical goal.
Read the full report at hotorcool.org.
