Emissions hotspots:
We can prioritize our approaches by focusing on behaviours, practices and lifestyles that have the largest impact. Directing funding towards these ‘emission hotspots’ is a key recommendation of the Cambridge Sustainability Commission:
“Resources and time are limited, and some sectors and lifestyles generate far more emissions than others. Unnecessary travel, meat-based diets, energy and housing are the obvious ones to start with.”
Cambridge Sustainability Commission, Scaling Behaviour Change
Most of the mainstream thinking on Fair Earth Living is centered on five key ‘domains’ or ‘sectors’ of action: buildings, consumer goods, food, leisure and mobility. Proposed high-impact actions for reducing emissions through personal and household-level behaviour change include:
- reducing home energy consumption and shifting to renewable energy;
- shifting from car and plane travel towards mass transit and relocalization of daily activities;
- shifting from meat and dairy consumption towards plant-rich diets.
Other studies recommend not just focusing on one high-impact behaviour at a time, but instead “communicating about multiple behaviours at the same time – painting a picture of a low-carbon lifestyle rather than a set of disjointed decisions.” This makes it possible to to better understand the links and similarities between behaviours.
Richer households contribute more to climate change. The top 10% of income earners globally contribute 45% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the IPCC (2022). Because of the disparities in emissions between high-income groups (in Canada and globally) and those who do not yet have their basic needs met, approaches to emission hotspots need to place equity at the centre.
This requires strategies that recognize the vulnerabilities, mutual interdependence and innovation needed to ensure quality of life for all. In general, all segments of society need to take part in the effort:
“Interventions, campaigns and proposals targeting polluter elites and specific sites of behaviour change may have more traction (in terms of public support and political palatability), and be more effective in terms of emissions savings than generic appeals to publics to support and engage in behaviour change.
But there is still work to do in drawing ‘the missing middle’ into the debate: not just those who are already active and living sustainable lifestyles, but also a much wider cross-section of society who can play a key role in driving future change.”
Cambridge Sustainability Commission, Scaling Behaviour Change
POSSIBLE ACTIVITIES AND PROGRAMS
Prioritize strategies and/or organizations focused on tackling ‘emission hotspot’ sectors:
- Support integrated lifestyle campaigns that tackle hotspots in combined ways across key sectors:
- Food (dietary choice, reducing food waste)
- Mobility (car-free, public transport, shift to walking, cycling, transit, walkable communities)
- Housing (efficient heating/building, low-impact and shared appliances)
- Goods (consuming less not just differently, share/reuse/repair, re-skilling, circular design/economies)
- Leisure (low-impact celebrations and leisure, local and slow vacations).
- Fund cross-cutting strategies including redefining wellbeing and the four-day workweek, and taking advantage of life changes (e.g., moving, starting a family, changing jobs, retiring) to support Fair Earth Living.
Fund diverse strategies for different income/emission groups:
- Prioritize efforts that target high-emitting, high-income populations – including through redefining ‘wealth’, peer dialogue, incentives and disincentives for impactful behaviours (e.g., frequent flyer levies).
- Fund, amplify, celebrate and reinforce those already living sustainable lives today.
- Support policy work or programming that explicitly advances the rights and wellbeing of people living in poverty (e.g., community gardens, food sovereignty, accessible transit, efficient housing, etc.).