Are We Missing the Opportunity of Low-Carbon Lifestyles? International Climate Policy Commitments and Demand-Side Gaps
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Integrated Sustainability Analysis, School of Physics A28, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
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Sustainable Consumption and Production Area, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Hayama 240-0115, Kanagawa, Japan
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Grigorios L. Kyriakopoulos
Sustainability 2021, 13(22), 12760; https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212760
Received: 29 September 2021
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Revised: 6 November 2021
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Accepted: 8 November 2021
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Published: 18 November 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns: Policy Design and Evaluation)
Current commitments in nationally determined contributions (NDCs) are insufficient to remain within the 2-degree climate change limit agreed to in the Paris Agreement. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that lifestyle changes are now necessary to stay within the limit. We reviewed a range of NDCs and national climate change strategies to identify inclusion of low-carbon lifestyles. We found that most NDCs and national climate change strategies do not yet include the full range of necessary mitigation measures targeting lifestyle change, particularly those that could reduce indirect emissions. Some exceptional NDCs, such as those of Austria, Slovakia, Portugal and the Netherlands, do include lifestyle changes, such as low-carbon diets, reduced material consumption, and low-carbon mobility. Most countries focus on supply-side measures with long lag times and might miss the window of opportunity to shape low-carbon lifestyle patterns, particularly those at early stages of development trajectories. Systemic barriers exist that should be corrected before new NDCs are released, including changing the accounting and reporting methodology, accounting for extraterritorial emissions, providing guidance on NDC scope to include the menu of options identified by the IPCC, and increasing support for national level studies to design demand-side policies.
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Keywords:
climate change policies; UNFCCC; demand-side management; behavioral change; consumption-based emissions; low-carbon lifestyles; indirect emissions; carbon footprint
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Salem, J.; Lenzen, M.; Hotta, Y. Are We Missing the Opportunity of Low-Carbon Lifestyles? International Climate Policy Commitments and Demand-Side Gaps. Sustainability 2021, 13, 12760. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212760
AMA Style
Salem J, Lenzen M, Hotta Y. Are We Missing the Opportunity of Low-Carbon Lifestyles? International Climate Policy Commitments and Demand-Side Gaps. Sustainability. 2021; 13(22):12760. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212760
Chicago/Turabian StyleSalem, Janet, Manfred Lenzen, and Yasuhiko Hotta. 2021. "Are We Missing the Opportunity of Low-Carbon Lifestyles? International Climate Policy Commitments and Demand-Side Gaps" Sustainability 13, no. 22: 12760. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212760
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