Consumption is driving global greenhouse gas emissions

Mark Diesendorf

Patrick Mazza has offered [1] a valuable analysis of China’s contribution to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and what it is doing, and still needs to do to reduce them. However, like the vast majority of scenarios on mitigating GHG emissions, it doesn’t address the elephant in the room, the growing growth in consumption in China and in the whole planet. Economic growth is closely corr-elated with the growth in consumption of energy and emissions.

Several studies [2,3] find that complete, absolute decoupling of energy, emissions and materials growth from GDP growth is a fantasy. At best, it can be achieved for limited periods in few places. In other words, green growth is a contradiction in terms. Even services like education require buildings, materials and energy-consuming servers. While some economic activities have reduced environmental impacts compared with others, all economic activities have some. Therefore we must address consumption.

If we only compare domestic emissions from each of China, the USA and the EU, we neglect the fact that the majority of China’s emissions are exported for consumption by the USA, EU and many other countries, including Australia. Although Mazza alludes to this in passing, this changes every-thing. For instance, in devising policies for cutting emissions, the Australian government must consider emissions resulting from our consumption of imported goods and from our exports of fossil fuels, as well as our domestic emissions.

Not everyone is equal in driving consumption. A recent study by Oxfam has revealed that the richest 10% of the global population are responsible for half of all global GHG emissions from consumption. Furthermore, the richest half of the world’s population are resp-onsible for 93% of global emissions from consumption. This population group would include almost all readers of this publication as well as the new rich and middle-class of China.

More generally, sustainability researchers Thomas Wiedmann, Julia Stein-berger and Manfred Lenzen point out that affluence “trashes our planetary life support systems. What’s more, it also obstructs the necessary trans-formation towards sustainability by driving power relations and consumption norms”.

Reduced emissions do indeed provide grounds for a little optimism but, while global GHG emissions continue to increase, even at a reduced rate, the risk of crossing climate tipping points also increases. Optimism is important for addressing solutions, but it must not obscure an understanding of the nature of the problems we are facing. Otherwise, our actions will be a best partially effective. Let’s address the driving forces, focusing here on the growth in consumption.

As a percentage of global total final energy consumption, fossil fuels contributed 80% in 2019, the same as in 2000. This disturbing result occurred despite the rapid growth of renewable energy over that period, because energy consumption grew substantially. As a result, renewable energy has been chasing an increasing target, a situation that continues today.

It’s true that, as transportation and combustion heating are gradually electrified, the percentage of renewable energy will gradually increase. But while consumption continues to increase, the energy transition is unlikely to be fast enough to avoid irreversible climate change. Time is of the essence!

On a (slightly) optimistic note, the technological energy transition, from fossil fuels to renewable energy, will automatically deliver a reduction in energy consumption from transportation and heating and hence a reduction in the rate of emissions. Because of the much greater efficiencies of energy conversion of electric vehicles versus internal combustion vehicles, and of electric heat pumps versus combustion heaters, today’s energy services could be supplied by about half [4] of today’s total final energy consumption.

However, under the current economic system, this reduction is would only offset the projected business-as-usual growth in demand for energy services to 2050. In the absence of CO2 removal, a failed option, this offset is, in my assessment [5], very unlikely to be sufficient to permit complete replacement of fossil energy by the year 2050 (although the authors of the scenario paper cited above at ‘about half’ would contest that).

Therefore, planned degrowth [6] to steady-state economies by the rich and rapidly growing countries must receive serious public discussion and action by governments. Human well-being is not determined by GDP –consider the huge disparities of wealth and income, and widespread poverty, in the USA. Wellbeing can be assessed by several culturally-relevant indicators, none of which need to be measured in monetary terms.

Planned degrowth [7] would be a dynamic, innovative process involving reductions in some economic activities
– e.g. fossil fuels; cars; financial services (which is mostly unproductive gambling on the stock market) – and increases in others – e.g. renewable energy; public transportation; social housing; and caring services for the very young, the old, the disadvantaged and for our life support system – the environment. But the barriers to plan-ed degrowth are substantial.

Underlying the growth in consumption is state capture [8] by politically powerful vested interests and the capitalist economic system that facilitates the influence of these interests. While capitalism has erected formidable barriers to change, its offshoot – neoliberalism, a form of extreme free-market capital-ism — is rightly under attack by many, like George Monbiot [9]. Neoclassical economics, which is alleged to provide the theoretical justification of neoliberalism, is also being severely criticised [10,11].

A sound basis for hope can arise when we recognise that the methods of state capture – e.g. political donations, elec-tion expenditure, revolving door jobs, concentrated media ownership and neoliberalism – are all vulnerable to attack. Exposing and weakening these methods will benefit simultaneously environmental protection, social justice, human rights and peace.

Source: Pearls & Irritations, 17 Dec 2024
https://johnmenadue.com/consumption-is-driving-global-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
1. https://johnmenadue.com/china-holds-the-worlds-climate-future-in-its-hands/
2. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab842a
3. https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/
4. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544221007167?via%3Dihub
5. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2022.2061407
6. https://johnmenadue.com/planned-degrowth-is-needed-to-stop-the-collapse-of-civilisation/
7. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04412-x
8. https://australiandemocracy.org.au/statecapture
9. https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/455534/the-invisible-doctrine-by-hutchison-george-monbiot-and-peter/9780241635902
10. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/debunking-economics-9781848139947/
11. https://johnmenadue.com/sustainability-scientists-challenge-the-dominant-economic-system/
12. https://theconversation.com/saving-humanity-heres-a-radical-approach-to-building-a-sustainable-and-just-society-205566#comment_2913683