Abstract: The call for a decent life for all within planetary limits poses a dual challenge: Provide all people with the essential resources needed to live well and, collectively, to not exceed the source and sink capacity of the biosphere to sustain human societies. In this paper, we examine the corridor of possible distributions of household energy and carbon footprints for the populations of 28 European countries that satisfy both minimal energy requirements for a decent living and maximum supply of decarbonised energy to achieve the 1.5°C target in 2050. We constructed energy and carbon footprints for harmonized European expenditure deciles in 2015 by combining data from national Household Budget Surveys (HBS) provided by EUROSTAT, with the Environmentally-Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output (EE-MRIO) model EXIOBASE and aggregating the ranked national expenditure quintiles European deciles. Estimates for a range of minimum energy requirements for a decent life, as well as estimates for the maximum available energy supply, were taken from the 1.5°C scenario literature. We found a top decile to bottom decile ratio of 7.2 for expenditure, 3.5 for energy and 2.6 for carbon, largely attributable to inefficient energy and heating technologies in the four bottom deciles that are predominantly located in Eastern European countries. Adopting best technology in all European deciles would save 19 EJ per year and equalize expenditure, energy and carbon inequality. At those inequality levels, the dual goal can only be achieved by CCS deployment plus large and fast efficiency improvements. plus extremely low minimum energy requirements of 27 GJ per adult equivalent (as compared to currently 130 GJ/ae in the lowest decile). When around 50 GJ/ae minimum energy requirements for a decent living and no CCS deployment is assumed, the mathematical possible inequality to also achieve the 1.5°C target becomes practically zero. We conclude that for Europe, combining the goals of providing enough energy for a decent living and achieving the Paris agreement poses an immense and widely underestimated challenge to which the current organization of the euro zone offers little monetary or fiscal leeway.
Abstract: The call for a decent life for all within planetary limits poses a dual challenge: Provide all people with the essential resources needed to live well and, collectively, to not exceed the source and sink capacity of the biosphere to sustain human societies. In this paper, we examine the corridor of possible distributions of household energy and carbon footprints for the populations of 28 European countries that satisfy both minimum energy requirements for a decent living and maximum supply of decarbonised energy to achieve the 1.5°C target in 2050. We constructed household energy and carbon footprints for harmonized European expenditure deciles in 2015 by combining data from national Household Budget Surveys (HBS) provided by EUROSTAT, with the Environmentally-Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output (EE-MRIO) model EXIOBASE. Estimates for a range of minimum energy requirements for a decent life, as well as estimates for the maximum available energy supply, were taken from the 1.5°C scenario literature. We found a top decile to bottom decile ratio of 7.2 for expenditure, 3.5 for energy and 2.6 for carbon, largely attributable to inefficient energy and heating technologies in the four bottom deciles that are predominantly located in Eastern European countries. Adopting best technology in all European deciles would save 19 EJ per year and equalize expenditure, energy and carbon inequality. At those inequality levels, the dual goal can only be achieved through CCS deployment, large and fast efficiency improvements, plus extremely low minimum energy requirements of 27 GJ per adult equivalent (as compared to currently 130 GJ/ae in the lowest decile). When around 50 GJ/ae minimum energy requirements for a decent living and no CCS deployment is assumed, the mathematical possible inequality to also achieve the 1.5°C target becomes practically zero. We conclude that for Europe and the eurozone, combining the goals of providing enough energy for a decent living and achieving the Paris agreement poses an immense and widely underestimated challenge, one which will likely require substantial monetary and fiscal leeway.
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Decarbonising the energy system in accordance with the Paris agreement requires a deep transformation of both the supply and the demand side [@grubler_low_2018]. On both sides, however, necessary transformation is restricted by different factors. On the supply side, there exist economic and physical upper limits of how much energy can be provided from renewable sources on the one hand, and how much CO2 removal infrastructure is used to compensate for remaining emissions from fossil fuels on the other. On the demand side [@creutzig_towards_2018], by contrast, there are lower limits to how much energy is minimally required for a decent standard of living [@grubler_low_2018 @millward-hopkins_providing_2020], depending on different assumptions about infrastructures and service provision [@creutzig_towards_2018], as well as the prevalent social ideas about what constitutes decent living [@rao_energy_2019 @millward-hopkins_providing_2020]. Maximum possible energy supply and minimum required energy demand describe the corridor in which the simultaneous achievement of climate targets and a decent standard of living for all is possible and, at the same time, restricts the distribution of available energy services among the population. If this dual objective is taken seriously in European climate policy, then there are practical limits to how unequal the society of the future can be, which go beyond the purely political. In fact, a limited energy supply creates an obvious, if rarely acknowledged, zero-sum game where energetic over-consumption by some must be compensated with less consumption by others.
Decarbonising the energy system in accordance with the Paris agreement requires a deep transformation of both the supply and the demand side [@grubler_low_2018]. On both sides, however, necessary transformation is restricted by different factors. On the supply side, there exist economic and physical upper limits of how much energy can be provided from renewable sources on the one hand, and how much CO2 removal infrastructure is used to compensate for remaining emissions from fossil fuels on the other. On the demand side [@creutzig_towards_2018], by contrast, there are lower limits to how much energy is minimally required for a decent standard of living [@grubler_low_2018 @millward-hopkins_providing_2020], depending on different assumptions about infrastructures and service provision [@creutzig_towards_2018], as well as the prevalent social ideas about what constitutes decent living [@rao_energy_2019 @millward-hopkins_providing_2020]. Maximum possible energy supply and minimum required energy demand describe the corridor in which the simultaneous achievement of climate targets and a decent standard of living for all is possible and, at the same time, restricts the distribution of available energy services among the population. If this dual objective is taken seriously in European climate policy, then there are practical limits to how unequal the society of the future can be, which go beyond the purely political [@leach_equity_2018]. In fact, a limited energy supply creates an obvious, if rarely acknowledged, zero-sum game where energetic over-consumption by some must be compensated with less consumption by others.
The average household energy footprint of European citizens was around 170 gigajoules (GJ) per capita in 2015 [@eurostat_eurostat_nodate-3 @stadler_exiobase_2018], and the household carbon footprint around 7 tonnes CO2-equivalence (tCO2eq) per capita [@eurostat_eurostat_nodate-4]. However, the differences in household energy and carbon footprints are large within and between different regions in Europe. Energy footprints ranged from less than 100 GJ per capita to over 300 GJ per capita [@oswald_large_2020], and carbon footprints from below 2.5 tCO2eq per capita to 55 tCO2eq per capita [@ivanova_unequal_2020]. Depending on the assumptions of different global decarbonisation scenarios, the average footprints likely need to be reduced to between 15.3 and 100 GJ per capita [@grubler_low_2018 @millward-hopkins_providing_2020], or 0.5 and 2.1 tCO2eq per capita [@akenji_1.5-degree_2019] by 2050, respectively.
file={ScienceDirect Full Text PDF:/home/jaccard/.mozilla/firefox/67kb6jd5.default/zotero/storage/K3D7MWJ2/Sovacool - 2017 - Reviewing, Reforming, and Rethinking Global Energy.pdf:application/pdf;ScienceDirect Snapshot:/home/jaccard/.mozilla/firefox/67kb6jd5.default/zotero/storage/TMWSHQZF/S0921800916303494.html:text/html}
}
@article{leach_equity_2018,
title={Equity and sustainability in the {Anthropocene}: a social–ecological systems perspective on their intertwined futures},
volume={1},
issn={2059-4798},
shorttitle={Equity and sustainability in the {Anthropocene}},
abstract={It is no longer possible nor desirable to address the dual challenges of equity and sustainability separately. Instead, they require new thinking and approaches which recognize their interlinkages, as well as the multiple perspectives and dimensions involved. We illustrate how equity and sustainability are intertwined, and how a complex social–ecological systems lens brings together advances from across the social and natural sciences to show how (in)equity and (un)sustainability are produced by the interactions and dynamics of coupled social–ecological systems. This should help understand which possible pathways could lead to sustainable and fair futures.},
language={en},
urldate={2021-02-15},
journal={Global Sustainability},
author={Leach, Melissa and Reyers, Belinda and Bai, Xuemei and Brondizio, Eduardo S. and Cook, Christina and Díaz, Sandra and Espindola, Giovana and Scobie, Michelle and Stafford-Smith, Mark and Subramanian, Suneetha M.},
file={Full Text PDF:/home/jaccard/.mozilla/firefox/67kb6jd5.default/zotero/storage/UEDPXD7A/Leach et al. - 2018 - Equity and sustainability in the Anthropocene a s.pdf:application/pdf;Snapshot:/home/jaccard/.mozilla/firefox/67kb6jd5.default/zotero/storage/PSM5EGK3/F6DCBE05CA3F6820A10C0DF193BB29E7.html:text/html}
