6. www.creds.ac.uk
So what caused the recent drop in emissions during COVID
Source: Le Quรฉrรฉ et al, 2020
(published in Nature Climate Change)
โข Between 4-7% of annual emission
reductions primarily from transport
7. The inequality in transport consumption: luxury vs need
Source: Oswald et al, 2020
(published in Nature Energy)
12. www.creds.ac.uk
Lifestyles vs structures
โ Where people can make low-carbon choices, we can encourage that! But
there are also a lot of structural reasons for why thatโs often not an option
โ Tackling car dependence and the structural barriers to a transformative
change (the infrastructures, the powerful actors with vested interests, the
political and economic agendas, the social norms)
โ Careful with framing as marginal lifestyle changes alone cannot deliver the
emission reductions needed. Such focus is often deliberately non-
transformative
13. www.creds.ac.uk
Implications for livable cities
โ De-growth of fossil-fuel production and use and just transition for the workers
in these industries
โ Living well within planetary boundaries (human needs vs wants)
โ Ambitious actions now! It is an emergency.
15. www.creds.ac.uk
References
โข IPCC. (2018). Special report:Global warming of 1.5ยฐC
โข Ivanova, D., Barrett, J.,Wiedenhofer, D., Macura, B., Callaghan, M., & Creutzig, F. (2020).Quantifying the potential for climate
change mitigation of consumption options. Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab8589
โข Leeds ClimateChangeCitizensโ Jury recommendations.
https://www.leedsclimate.org.uk/sites/default/files/CJ%20recommendations%20FINAL%20_0.pdf
โข Oswald,Y., Owen, A., & Steinberger, J. K. (2020). Large inequality in international and intranational energy footprints between
income groups and across consumption categories. Nature Energy, 5(3), 231โ239. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-0579-8
โข Quรฉrรฉ, C. Le, Jackson, R. B., Jones, M.W., Smith,A. J. P., Abernethy, S., Andrew, R. M., โฆ Peters, G. P. (2020).Temporary
reduction in daily global CO2 emissions during the COVID-19 forced confinement. NatureClimate Change, 1โ8.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0797-x
Editor's Notes
I am not the transport expert here, you are. My background is in industrial ecology, aiming to offer a systems perspective on how
I am not the transport expert here, you are. My background is in industrial ecology, aiming to offer a systems perspective on how
In order to stay within 1.5 degree of global warming, we need to half emissions by 2030 (compared to 2010-levels). That means steeply reducing annual emissions starting immediately, reaching net zero by 2050.
Yet despite the drastic reductions that are needed, global daily fossil fuel emissions have been steadily increasing up until this year with a few exceptions such as the financial crisis. And up until this year anything that managed to reduce emissions have been in the form of an economic crises. This shows really the degree of climate denial and climate delay that is taking place with a complete lack of ambitious coordinated actions to reduce emissions anywhere close to what is needed โ leaving global devastating crises to be the sole occurrences of reductions. (in no way I mean to say that crises are good here - they have been devastating and further disadvantaging already disadvantaged groups)
So what caused the recent drop in emissions in the months of lockdown โ while small reductions in power and industry activity have been noted โ the biggest chunk is linked to the reductions in land and air travel.
Mobility โ and especially air mobility โ are extremely elastic โ meaning that as people become higher spenders and income earners, their consumption of transport tends to increase, with higher proportions of spending on transport. On this graph, you can see that vehicle purchase, fuel, air transport and package holidays are all classified in the red quadrant as luxury and high energy intensity goods. As such they are extremely unequally distributed globally. We can also expect that consumption of these goods with further grow as countries/consumers get richer.
This graph is showing that as people get richer they tend to spend more on transport. Tension โ luxury, while also need in car dependent areas (e.g. rural); important for inclusion, mobility to work/school etc
In OECD countries, transport GHG emissions are high and must be radically reduced, but need-satisfaction has come to be dependent on (high levels of) car use [10,14,15]. Car ownership and use can be an essential precondition for social inclusion in developed countries, notably in suburban and peri-urban areas which have been built on the assumption of near-universal car access [16โ24].
4 of the top 5 are directly transport
So it is thus no surprise that transport is ranking first in terms of reduction potential from consumption perspective. With options such as car-free live ranking first in terms of mitigation potential across the domains of transport, food, housing and other consumption. This figure shows the top 10 options from a consumption perspective as a result of a systematic review that we carried out and published earlier this year (so each point is an estimate discussed in prior literature).
For example, living car-free ranks highest and is associated with a medium and average mitigation potential of 2 t CO2eq/cap. Obviously assumptions about travel distance , fuel and vehicle characteristics are critical for the estimate of mitigation potential here.
The potential of the shift to battery electric vehicles varies with the electricity mix, which explains about 70% of the variability. (longer travel estimates have been assumed in the studies covering BEVs.
Finally, just one less long-haul flight follows with 1.9 tCO2eq/cap on average (just one return flight comparable contribution to a year of driving), while a medium flight has an average of 0.6 tCO2eq/cap.
The city of #Leeds set up a #ClimateChange Citizen's Jury from a random selection of citizens with the task of producing recommendations for the adequate addressing of the climate emergency in the city. (Leeds city council, as well as the UK overall, have declared climate emergency with net-zero targets by 2050 (CCC)). The top ranked recommendation of the citizens jury
The jury made 12 recommendations, 2 of which directly related to travel and the reduction of the car and air travel. When people are presented with the facts and the urgency of the climate change problem, they unanimously see the need for drastic reductions in fossil-powered transport.
I donโt really have time to get into specific instruments and these are also very context dependent, but I would like to discuss a few principles that should be considered when adopting plans for action.
