System change vs behaviour change is a false choice – Covid-19 shows how they’re connected

Decarbonising the energy supply

It goes without saying (even increasingly for fossil fuel companies) that changes in ‘demand side’ behaviours – even on a radical scale – will make only a limited dent in global emissions unless the energy supply system is decarbonised, and unless many of the ways our economies operate – particularly in rich countries – are reconfigured.

Moving as fast and as fairly as we can away from fossil fuels and towards low carbon energy sources and sustainable societies is essential, and rightly a focus of scientists and campaigners around the world. The scale of this challenge is underscored by the fact that even with many parts of the global economy on pause (i.e. not just ‘consumption’ activities), emissions cuts have been limited.

Given that we’ve barely got moving with these critical changes to the global energy system, and that fossil fuels remain dominant in many countries around the world, it isn’t surprising that knocking out some aspects of energy consumption (air travel, the leisure industry, domestic transport) only has a limited impact on global carbon emissions.

The energy-consuming activities that remain – including global agriculture and increased home energy use – are still largely powered by high carbon fuels. We are still able to consume products and services – the source of a large proportion of emissions – even from home.

Two sides of the same coin

The rapid, radical shifts we have witnessed during lockdowns show how deeply interconnected ‘system change’ and ‘behaviour change’ are. The risks to wider society from Covid-19 have in large part been limited precisely because of the actions of many individual households committing to ‘stay home’ and socially distance.

In the case of climate change, broad-based public consent and a social mandate is likewise essential for significant policy and structural shifts to occur around travel, home energy use and diet.

What the lockdown period shows very clearly is that without public support, shifts in moral and social norms, and a commitment to individual behaviour changes in service of addressing a collective risk, the structural and policy shifts would simply not be achievable. A sense of ‘collective efficacy’ from millions of individual decisions added together is a critical learning point from the Covid-19 experience (as the new Climate Outreach guide on effective climate communication during the pandemic emphasises).

The lesson for climate change is clear: system change and behaviour change are two sides of the same coin. We need to focus on both – and also to recognise the constant interplay between them – in order to achieve global climate targets.

People are more than just energy ‘consumers’

More moderate, but much more permanent policy shifts to cut carbon (for example through eating more plant-based diets) will need public support or they will not be implemented. Technological shifts – for example away from gas boilers and towards heat pumps to power homes – will only be possible if the public are persuaded they are necessary, and that the transition away from more familiar technologies is fair and just.

It is also critical to acknowledge that ordinary people have many different roles, and are not simply consumers of energy or passive users of technologies. As Covid-19 has demonstrated, the power of social and moral norms has been phenomenal in shifting and locking in changes in behaviours. But as decision makers at work, voters, citizens protesting or writing to their MPs, individuals have many routes to make their voices heard, and when this happens en masse it can create rapid change.

It’s true of course that without decarbonising the energy supply, any tweaking on the demand side will only have a limited impact on our collective carbon footprint. But likewise, there is no plausible decarbonisation pathway which can cope with ever-growing levels of personal aviation and private transport, and unrestrained material consumption.

Decarbonisation on the supply-side coupled with significant shifts in the lifestyles of a (considerable) global minority are absolutely essential to achieve global emissions targets. This includes not only the extremes, who do account for a huge portion of global emissions (for instance, the richest 1% of the global population uses 175 times more carbon than someone from the bottom 10%), but also a large majority of those who live in rich, high-emitting countries.

Closing the emissions gap

Climate Outreach and the CAST centre are leading a team of authors working on a chapter for the next United Nations Emissions Gap report exploring precisely this issue. The chapter will identify lifestyle changes and social practices that are most impactful for reducing global emissions – particularly in wealthy countries – and make the case for how social practices and lifestyle changes can become systemic changes.

For this to work, we need to focus on both behaviour change and system change. It is essential that we find ways to transcend the false and unhelpful dichotomy that it’s “either or”, and instead have a more sophisticated debate about how the two are dynamically – and unavoidably – linked.

This blogpost was written by Adam Corner with input from Stuart Capstick (Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations, CAST) and Susie Wang (Climate Outreach).