[MCN] The Supreme Court put sharp limits on agencies' ability to regulate causes of climate change. Where does that leave us?

[Lance Olsen]

28-Jun-2022 <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957245>
Limiting global warming to 1.5°C would reduce risks to humans by up to 85% <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957245>
 <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957245>
New research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) quantifies the benefits of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957245>
JOURNAL <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957245>
Climatic Change <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957245>
 <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957245>
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957245 <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957245>

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“A death zone is creeping over the surface of Earth, gaining a little more ground each year. 

“As an analysis published this week in Nature Climate Change shows, since 1980, these temporary hells on Earth have opened up hundreds of times to take life (C. Mora et al. Nature Clim. Change http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3322 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3322>; 2017).” 

Nature 546, 452 (22 June 2017) doi:10.1038/546452a

==========================


Nature Climate Change   Published: 09 May 2022 <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01369-7#article-info>
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01369-7 <https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01369-7>

Editorial

Action on demand


Excerpt 
The recent IPCC report highlights the importance of demand-side solutions in mitigation strategies. Understanding the motivation and capacity of these solutions is essential, and could help to promote collective and practical actions for this critical decade.

Previous mitigation policies have focused on the supply-side, such as energy system transitions or land-use changes. The AR6 WG III report, for the first time, includes an independent and full chapter on ‘Demand, services and social aspects of mitigation’, which puts individual needs centre stage of the analysis. With contributions from scholars across the different social-science disciplines, the report shows demand-side solutions, including social-cultural transitions and lifestyle changes, that could have great potential for emissions reductions in almost every sector. It also summarizes the factors of motivations of individuals to adopt low-carbon behaviours and what actions need to be improved.

With contributions from scholars across the different social-science disciplines, the report shows demand-side solutions, including social-cultural transitions and lifestyle changes, that could have great potential for emissions reductions in almost every sector. It also summarizes the factors of motivations of individuals to adopt low-carbon behaviours and what actions need to be improved. 

Beyond reducing carbon emissions in different sectors, the demand-side options could also bring large interacting benefits and enhance human well-being. In their Article <https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01219-y>, Creutzig and colleagues conducted a systematic literature review and used expert judgments to demonstrate that most demand-side solutions, such as consumption pattern shifts, active and shared mobility, and dietary changes, have positive impacts on human well-being. The most notable improvements can be observed in health, air quality and energy access, which are often framed as co-benefits. These actions could also improve the social aspects of well-being, such as security and stability.

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Nature Energy Published: 27 June 2022 <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#article-info>

Energy demand reduction options for meeting national zero-emission targets in the United Kingdom

John Barrett <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-John-Barrett>, Steve Pye <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-Steve-Pye>, Sam Betts-Davies <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-Sam-Betts_Davies>, Oliver Broad <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-Oliver-Broad>, James Price <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-James-Price>, Nick Eyre <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-Nick-Eyre>, Jillian Anable <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-Jillian-Anable>, Christian Brand <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-Christian-Brand>, George Bennett <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-George-Bennett>, Rachel Carr-Whitworth <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-Rachel-Carr_Whitworth>, Alice Garvey <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-Alice-Garvey>, Jannik Giesekam <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-Jannik-Giesekam>, Greg Marsden <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-Greg-Marsden>, Jonathan Norman <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-Jonathan-Norman>, Tadj Oreszczyn <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-Tadj-Oreszczyn>, Paul Ruyssevelt <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-Paul-Ruyssevelt> & Kate Scott <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#auth-Kate-Scott> 


OPEN ACCESS pdf
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y.pdf <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y/metrics>
Abstract
In recent years, global studies have attempted to understand the contribution that energy demand reduction could make to climate mitigation efforts. Here we develop a bottom-up, whole-system framework that comprehensively estimates the potential for energy demand reduction at a country level. Replicable for other countries, our framework is applied to the case of the United Kingdom where we find that reductions in energy demand of 52% by 2050 compared with 2020 levels are possible without compromising on citizens’ quality of life. This translates to annual energy demands of 40 GJ per person, compared with the current Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average of 116 GJ and the global average of 55 GJ. 

Our findings show that energy demand reduction can reduce reliance on high-risk carbon dioxide removal technologies, has moderate investment requirements and allows space for ratcheting up climate ambition. We conclude that national climate policy should increasingly develop and integrate energy demand reduction measures.

Main

1st paragraph

Since the Paris Agreement was signed, global assessments have shown the important role that reducing final energy demand can play in meeting international climate targets by easing pressure on the decarbonization of energy supply and reducing the need for carbon dioxide removal (CDR)1 <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#ref-CR1>,2 <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#ref-CR2>,3 <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#ref-CR3>. Yet, global final energy demand continues to grow; since 2000, it has increased at an average annual rate of 1.9% (ref. 4 <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#ref-CR4>). This growth continues to be met, in part, by fossil fuels. New low carbon energy, particularly renewable generation, is not keeping pace with increasing demand5 <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#ref-CR5>,6 <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#ref-CR6>. While the carbon intensity of the global energy system is falling, at its current rate, it would take 150 years to fully decarbonize7 <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01057-y#ref-CR7>. This highlights the importance of actions that reduce energy demand for meeting stringent targets.

=============================

Environmental Research Letters <https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/1748-9326> 31 May 2019 
Even for the environment, context matters! States, households, and residential energy consumption
Lazarus Adua3,1 and Brett Clark2

Article PDF <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1abf/pdf> 
3087 Total downloads

Abstract

This study adopts a multi-level approach to examine the extent to which state- and household-level factors shape residential energy consumption in the United States, focusing on efficiency improvement and affluence. Analyzing the 2009 Residential Energy Consumption Survey, state-level energy efficiency data from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), and other sources, we find that state context significantly influences energy consumption at the household level. Households in states scoring high on energy efficiency consume significantly less residential energy than those in states scoring low on the measure. At the household level, the analysis reveals mixed relationships between investment in energy efficiency technologies and residential energy consumption, as some measures of efficiency technology are negatively related to residential energy consumption, others are positively related to it. In regard to affluence, state-level measures do not emerge as significant predictors of residential energy consumption. At the household level, however, affluence drives residential energy consumption, which, in turn, is a significant driver of carbon dioxide emissions. Our study makes an important contribution to the social scientific literature on energy consumption, illuminating distinct relationships at different levels. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that simultaneously examines the impacts of factors measured at both the household (micro) and state (meso) levels.

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Book review : Under the Sky We Make. Kimberly Nicholas, PhD

Excerpt : Individual responsibility has become something of a flashpoint in the climate discourse. 

On the one hand, oil companies love to harp on about <https://grist.org/energy/footprint-fantasy/> personal carbon footprints as a way of distracting from their much larger contributions to the climate crisis, both through the fossil fuel products they make and their longstanding, ongoing efforts to delay climate action and misinform the public. 

At the same time, prominent journalists and scientists have waved off individual climate actions as a distraction from the systemic changes that are needed to solve the crisis — changes like overhauling our electricity and transit systems through governmental investments in clean energy, better regulation, and carbon pricing. 

They’re joined by a growing chorus of climate justice advocates who rightly point out that asking poor people to make difficult dietary shifts or give up the car they need to get to work is completely unfair.

That’s not what Nicholas is doing. Her message isn’t aimed at folks struggling to make ends meet, but at people making a middle-class income or higher who live in a wealthy country like the United States, Germany, or France. Far from a distraction, Nicholas argues that the climate impact of the carbon elite is something we need to focus on — individually    and systematically. She points out that globally, more than two-thirds of climate pollution can be attributed to household consumption <https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es803496a>, and that the richest 10 percent of the world population — those making more than $38,000 a year <https://wedocs.unep.org/xmlui/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/34432/EGR20ch6.pdf?sequence=3> — is responsible for about half of those emissions. 

https://grist.org/culture/cutting-your-carbon-footprint-matters-a-lot-if-youre-rich/
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“Undoing the Clean Power Plan could be just the beginning   …   Also in the crosshairs are many other environmental statutes passed in the 1970s, 
such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act.”

“Preservation of these statutes must not get lost in the potential clamor over the Clean Power Plan. They are the foundation of environmental policy 
and were the response to dangerous environmental degradation. With hostility toward these regulations at the federal level, vigilant focus on these 
laws is required at the state and local level as well as by the broader public.”

Rood, R. B. (2016), Take the long view on environmental issues in the age of Trump

Eos,Published on 01 December 2016. 
<<https://eos.org/opinions/take-the-long-view-on-environmental-issues-in-the-age-of-trump>>



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