The Covid pandemic has underlined the impact on lives when global crises strike, so society is perhaps slightly more cognizant of the impact something like climate change could have now than ever before.

Research from the University of Leeds argues that if we’re to avoid major disruption to our way of life due to climate change, we need to make fundamental changes to our economies.  These changes include beefing up public services, reducing income disparities, and abandoning the constant pursuit of economic growth in the west.

This, the authors suggest, would allow all people to thrive while simultaneously cutting energy use in half.  These drastic measures are necessary, they urge, if we’re to avoid a more existential catastrophe.

Decent living standards

The research aims to explore what policies could be enacted to ensure that the global population has reasonable living standards while also consuming far less energy.

“Decent living standards are crucial for human well-being, and reducing global energy use is crucial for averting catastrophic climate changes,” the authors say. “Truly sustainable development would mean providing decent living standards for everyone at much lower, sustainable levels of energy and resource use.”

“But in the current economic system, no country in the world accomplishes that — not even close. It appears that our economic system is fundamentally misaligned with the aspirations of sustainable development: it is unfit for the challenges of the 21st century.”

Cutting energy use

The authors argue that to meet the targets set by the Paris Agreement will require energy use to be halved per person by 2050, with those in richer countries having to fall by significantly more.

Such reductions carry understandable concerns about the impact it will have on standards of life, as high energy use is inexorably linked to high living standards today.  As such, it’s perhaps reasonable to assume that lowering energy usage in rich countries would also lower living standards, while improving living standards in less wealthy countries would require an increase in their own energy usage.

While this assumption has a degree of logic to it, it’s not inevitable, the researchers argue.  It can only be achieved, however, if changes are made to both economic and social priorities.

“Our findings suggest that improving public services could enable countries to provide decent living standards at lower levels of energy use,” the researchers say. “Governments should offer free and high-quality public services in areas such as health, education, and public transport.”

Central to the authors’ thesis is that exceeding moderate levels of affluence is largely detrimental to any aspirations of sustainable development.

“In contrast with wide-spread assumptions, the evidence suggests that decent living standards require neither perpetual economic growth nor high levels of affluence,” they argue.

“In fact, economic growth in affluent or even moderately affluent countries is detrimental for living standards. And it is also fundamentally unsustainable: economic growth is tied to increases in energy use, and thus makes the energy savings that are required for tackling climate breakdown virtually impossible.”