Why achieving the Paris Agreement requires reduced overall consumption and production
By E. Alfredsson, Magnus Lars Bengtsson, Halina Szejnwald Brown, Cindy Isenhour, S. Lorek, Dimitris Stevis, Philip J. Vergragt. 2018
113 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Abstract Technological solutions to the challenge of dangerous climate change are urgent and necessary but to be effective they need to be accompanied by reductions in the total level of consumption and production of goods and services. This is for three reasons. First, private consumption and its associated production are among the key drivers of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, especially among highly emitting industrialized economies. There is no evidence that decoupling of the economy from GHG emissions is possible at the scale and speed needed. Second, investments in more sustainable infrastructure, including renewable energy, needed in coming decades will require extensive amounts of energy, largely from fossil sources, which will use up a significant share of the two-degree carbon budget. Third, improving the standard of living of the world’s poor will consume a major portion of the available carbon allowance. The scholarly community has a responsibility to put the issue of consumption and the associated production on the research and policy agenda.
Subfields: Environmental Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/17ebb4e807fbfbaec4314226af664e5922ca7c0a
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In Environmental Engineering
In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
Citations in the corpus
- Does the COVID-19 outbreak mark the onset of a sustainable consumption transition? (2020, background): “…correspondence between consumption practices and greenhouse-gas emissions, the Paris Climate Agreement appropriately recognized, “sustainable patterns of consumption and production… play an important role in addressing climate change” (United Nations 2015; refer also to Alfredsson et al. 2018).”