Millward-Hopkins, J orcid.org/0000-0003-4189-1658, Steinberger, JK orcid.org/0000-0002-5925-9602, Rao, ND et al. (1 more author) (2020) Providing decent living with minimum energy: A global scenario. Global Environmental Change, 65. 102168. ISSN 0959-3780
Abstract
It is increasingly clear that averting ecological breakdown will require drastic changes to contemporary human society and the global economy embedded within it. On the other hand, the basic material needs of billions of people across the planet remain unmet. Here, we develop a simple, bottom-up model to estimate a practical minimal threshold for the final energy consumption required to provide decent material livings to the entire global population. We find that global final energy consumption in 2050 could be reduced to the levels of the 1960s, despite a population three times larger. However, such a world requires a massive rollout of advanced technologies across all sectors, as well as radical demand-side changes to reduce consumption – regardless of income – to levels of sufficiency. Sufficiency is, however, far more materially generous in our model than what those opposed to strong reductions in consumption often assume.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
Keywords: | Basic needs; Climate change; Demand; Energy; Inequality; Sufficiency |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Leverhulme Trust RL-2016-048 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 15 Sep 2020 11:51 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:25 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102168 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:165448 |