The Behavioral Wedge: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Individuals and Households

• Activity Number: 46
• Type: Other
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 1, 2010 : 4:00 PM to 5:50 PM
• Sponsor: ASA
• Author(s): Jonathan Gilligan*+
• Companies: Climate Change Research Network

Abstract

Personal and household energy consumption is responsible for around 38% U.S. carbon dioxide emissions---more than the industrial, commercial (office & retail), or commercial-transportation sectors and more than the total emissions of any entire nation except China. Actions by individuals and households to increase efficiency or otherwise conserve energy can contribute significantly to reducing greenhouse gas emissions but have been neglected in most policy analyses. We study 17 types of actions that use readily-available technology without requiring significant changes in lifestyle and find they can potentially reduce individual and household CO2 emissions by 37%. However, there has been little analysis of reasonably achievable emissions reduction: how much of this potential can be achieved in practice. For this, we use results from past energy-efficiency and conservation programs to estimate behavioral plasticity: the fraction of people not currently performing an action who can be induced to do so by well-designed programs. We conclude that effective policies could reduce individual and household emissions by 20% within 10 years through voluntary actions. This would reduce total US emissions by 7.4%, or 123 million metric tons of carbon per year. This work also highlights areas in need of further research, including better estimates of current behaviors, interactions among multiple efficiency measures, and improved estimates of behavioral plasticity. The work presented here was performed in collaboration with T. Dietz, G.T. Gardner, P.C. Stern, and M.P. Vandenberg.