You’re looking at a scientific snapshot of a vastly unequal world driving into climate overshoot. Each one of those – #inequality, #overshoot – is a major problem on its own; now they’re reinforcing each other.
Some not-so-funky numbers from the report A Climate for Sufficiency.
- These are the main categories where consumption and lifestyles are associated with the highest climate impacts: food, transport, housing, consumer goods, leisure, services. The first three – food, transport and housing – together, at over 75% of total lifestyles climate impacts, hold the key to unlocking a sustainable world
- The average among countries in this report show they are over seven times the limit for 2035 to achieve the 1.5C. None of the 25 countries analyzed in this report are on track to stay within the 1.5C target. Not even the lower income countries. To add to this, low-income countries still actually need to increase their consumption, in order to meet basic needs of their citizens.
- The footprint of someone in the US is more than 10 times that of someone in Nigeria. Consumption and lifestyle of someone in India has less impact than the amount of flying and driving by someone in Australia.
- Most low-, and lower-middle income countries use a high percentage of their resources to secure food, very little on consumer goods, and have low climate-impact leisure. For high-income countries, there is a saturation of food consumption; most of that income and impact is shifted to travelling around and leisure.
- There is a reason why universal provisioning is good – economically, socially and environmentally. Take a look at services in the US, the impact owing mainly to the private healthcare system. While there, also look at the impact of absence of public transportation systems. (According to most studies, people in America are neither healthier nor happier than people from Norway, Japan or even Canada.)
There’s more. Access the report “A #Climate for #Sufficiency: 1.5-Degree #Lifestyles (2025 Update)” here: A Climate for Sufficiency: 1.5-Degree Lifestyles Report – Hot or Cool
