Büchs, M. orcid.org/0000-0001-6304-3196, Cass, N., Mullen, C. et al. (2 more authors) (2023) Emissions savings from equitable energy demand reduction. Nature Energy, 8 (7). pp. 758-769. ISSN 2058-7546
Abstract
Energy demand reduction (EDR) will be required to reach climate targets in the Global North. To be compatible with just transitions principles, EDR needs to be equitable. Equitable EDR may involve targeting high energy users while ensuring the satisfaction of needs for all, which could require increasing consumption of low users. Emissions impacts of equitable EDR approaches have not yet been assessed. This Article finds that capping energy use of the top quintile of consumers across 27 European countries can achieve considerable greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 11.4% from domestic energy, 16.8% from transport and 9.7% from total energy consumption. Increasing consumption of low energy users in poverty reduces these savings by only 1.2, 0.9 and 1.4 percentage points, respectively. Additional high annual emissions cuts of 7.3–24.0% would be required for Europe to meet globally equitable 2050 emissions budgets. Equitable EDR could make an important contribution to increasing public acceptance of such transformative action.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2023. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Dates: |
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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 EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) EP/R035288/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 24 Aug 2023 15:09 |
Last Modified: | 21 Jan 2025 13:15 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Nature |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41560-023-01283-y |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:201650 |