Lifestyle Carbon Footprint
The future of our civilization and its sustainability depends on resolving three major aspects that are already manifesting across societies: a strain between finite natural resources and the ongoing extraction to satisfy our appetites for growth; a stress between the socioeconomic system and unequal distribution patterns that continue to exacerbate extremes of poverty and wealth; and a stress between the waste and pollution that we generate and the environment's ability to absorb it. All three strains are a result of how society is set up and how we as a community define and pursue our needs and desire both individually and collectively. Therefore, any efforts to address the sustainability concern must start with fundamental changes in the way we consume and live.
This study focused on how people's daily activities are influenced by their lifestyle decisions. The unit of lifestyle carbon footprints—GHG emissions both directly and indirectly caused by household consumption, excluding those caused by government consumption and capital formation—is used to achieve this. Lifestyle carbon footprints enable a strong focus on emissions originating from intentional individual decisions and due to lock-in effects of scientific disciplines, which invariably constrain these choices, contributing to consumption-based counting and by ignoring emissions from government spending and capital formation (Akenji and Chen 2016). Based on prior research, such as Michaelis and Lorek (2004), Tukker et al. (2006), Kotakorpi et al. (2008), Lettenmeier et al. (2014), (Akenji 2019), household resource consumption is divided into six domains as below:-
• Food: consumption of all foods and drinks, including those with alcohol or without, that are consumed both inside and outside of the home, such as meat, fish, dairy products, cereal, fruits, vegetables, and meat.
• Housing: housing infrastructure and utility supply, such as building, upkeep, energy use, and water use
• Personal transportation: the use of privately owned vehicles and transportation services for commute, recreation, and other private reasons, including bicycles, motorbikes, public transportation, and air travel.
• Consumer goods are products and commodities bought by homes for personal use that are not covered by other domains, such as furniture, clothing, home appliances, and other everyday items.
• Leisure: activities done away from home, such as sports, culture, entertainment, and hotel services.
• Services: including insurance, communication, and information services, ceremonies, cleaning services, public baths, and public services.
The targets of lifestyle carbon footprints (carbon footprints from households) in the five shortlisted scenarios16 (introduced in Chapter 2, Tables 2.2 and 2.3) are summarised in Figure 1& 2. In terms of all GHGs, the ranges of the estimated lifestyle carbon footprint targets for 2030, 2040, and 2050 are respectively 3.2–2.5, 2.2– 1.4, and 1.5–0.7 tCO₂e per capita (IGES et al. 2019). Because of varying assumptions about negative emission technologies and temperature targets, the ranges overlap. The choice of targets between the lower and higher ends depends on the projected long-term availability of human carbon sinks or negative emissions technologies, as well as the choice of 1.5°C or 2.0°C as the target for the world average temperature. According to several study of emission scenarios, we need to aim for a lifestyle carbon footprint objective of 0.7 tCO2e by 2050, with proposed intermediate targets of 2.5 tCO2e in 2030 and 1.4 tCO2e in 2040. These targets are consistent with the Paris Agreement's aspirational target of 1.5°C and for global peaking of GHG emissions as soon as possible without relying heavily on negative emission technology.
Source- 1.5-Degree Lifestyles: Towards A Fair Consumption Space for All, 2021 Report.
Comparing lifestyle carbon footprints
The total average lifestyle carbon footprints differ significantly between the countries, with Canada having the highest at 14.2 tCO2e annually. Finland comes in second with 9.7 tCO2e, the UK is 8.5 tCO2e behind, Japan is 8.1 tCO2e, China is 5.0 tCO2e, South Africa and Turkey are 4.9 tCO2e, Brazil is 3.2 tCO2e, India is 3.0 tCO2e, and Indonesia is 2.2 t Figure 3 summarizes the findings and breaks down each nation's total footprint into its many components in tonnes CO2e/cap/yr. Canada, Finland, the United Kingdom, and Japan significantly surpass the targets; China, Turkey, and South Africa overshoot the target in a moderate manner; and Brazil and India slightly overshoot the target relative to the carbon footprint target proposed for 2030 (2.5 tonnes per capita in terms of all GHGs). As a result, lifestyle carbon footprints need to drop by the following percentages by 2030: Canada
82%, Finland 74%, the United Kingdom 70%, Japan 69%, China 50%, South Africa 49%, Turkey 49%, Brazil 23%, and India 14%. Indonesia is already currently close to the target level set for 2030 (Table 1). The lifestyle footprint target for 2050 (0.7 tons per capita in terms of all GHGs) is exceeded in all case countries. Large footprint reductions of 95% and 93% are needed in Canada and Finland, respectively, 92% and 91% reductions are needed in the United Kingdom and Japan, and 86% reductions are needed in China, Turkey, and South Africa. Reductions are also needed in Brazil, India, and Indonesia of 78%, 76%, and 68%, respectively.
Source- 1.5-Degree Lifestyles: Towards A Fair Consumption Space for All, 2021 Report.
Source- 1.5-Degree Lifestyles: Towards A Fair Consumption Space for All, 2021 Report.
References
Akenji, L., Bengtsson, M., Toivio, V., Lettenmeier, M., Fawcett, T., Parag, Y., et al. (2021). 1.5Degree Lifestyles: Towards A Fair Consumption Space for All. Hot or Cool Institute, Berlin. 162.
Tukker, Arnold, Gjalt Huppes, Jeroen Guinée, Reinout Heijungs, A. de Koning, Lauran Oers,
Sangwon Suh, et al. 2006. ―Environmental Impact of Products (EIPRO) Analysis of the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts Related to the Final Consumption of the EU-25.‖ Technical Report Series, EUR 22284 EN, 1 - 136 (2006), January.
Kotakorpi, Elli, Satu Lähteenoja, and Michael Lettenmeier. 2008. Household MIPS - Natural Resource Consumption of Finnish Households and Its Deduction. THE FINNINSH ENVIRONMENT 43en. Ministry of Environment.
Lettenmeier, Michael, Christa Liedtke, and Holger Rohn. 2014. ―Eight Tons of Material Footprint— Suggestion for a Resource Cap for Household Consumption in Finland.‖ Resources 3 (3): 488–515.
Akenji, Lewis, and Huizhen Chen. 2016. ―A Framework For Shaping Sustainable Lifestyles: Determinants and Strategies.‖United Nations Environment Programme. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6014d24c7c14359f22bf2f9504ee967222422863.