What would life look like if we actually halved carbon emissions?

[Punkypinky]

Just reading about COPT 27 and the fact no countries are really doing much to reduce emissions.

The problem just seems insurmountable to me without us all living VERY different lives, by which I mean no flights, no driving, only eating seasonal produce and very little (if any) meat and probably a whole host of other bleak things too. No one's going to do it are they?

That's the thing, the life isn't awful just because you do things a little different. I think many people think like you or I do, But there are people who think different, and trying to fight back the effort people are trying to make. That's the biggest problem.

mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham This covers the above better than I can!

Exactly this!

I think both are required: personal action and government action. A lot of people are willing to live a little more simply and consume less; governments don’t seem so keen to reduce fossil fuel extraction and the money that generates - we can vote and campaign for that. The change of government in Australia and Brazil is encouraging, if fragile.

And I agree with those who mention overpopulation, with the caveat as someone mentioned that it’s rich people (in global terms) who are the problem. Only a tiny fraction of people fly, globally, and even in the U.K. it’s a small minority who take more than one flight a year. If high-consuming western populations had fewer children that would avoid locking in high consuming future populations. However population growth is falling and in many western countries is dropping below replacent level which is a good thing. We might worry about how to fund pensions but at least the impact on the atmosphere and natural world will be less.

A few positives - if we had more renewable energy, it would be cheaper for all of us, and with far less pollution - think how much better air quality would be!

To halve emissions, life would look like:

• lots of renewable energy with a bit of nuclear
• retrofitted buildings with insulation, heat pumps and solar panels on suitable roofs
• electric cars, buses and vans
• reduced personal car use in urban areas, with more car sharing, and active transport including electric bikes
• lower meat consumption (I think the CCC recommended 20% less)
• restoration of nature in some areas (this would be helped greatly by lower meat consumption)
• more careful use of concrete and steel
• taking care with methane, by avoiding emissions from landfills, and fossil fuel extraction activities

None of which sounds too terrible to me, in fact lots sounds nice - having home-grown secure energy, less air pollution, cosier homes, and more beautiful nature to visit and enjoy.

The UK has been dropping emissions for a years now, while growing GDP (although maybe GDP has shrunk very recently). Mostly this has been down to how we generate electricity - it hasn't been down to reducing consumption.

We can't tackle climate change by making it a morality story, and putting a hair shirt on everyone - even if everyone listened it wouldn't be effective.

We need to keep doing, roughly what we're doing already, but a lot more smartly. And we need to keep pushing our politicians to make that happen.