High impact actions for individuals to mitigate climate change
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We need to reduce emissions by 8% per year, every year, until 2030 to meet the Paris Agreement’s target for keeping climate warming below 1.5°C (1). While there are still massive systematic technological and socio-economic changes that need to be researched, developed, and adopted (recall Solving Climate Change: Simplified) there are actions we can, and need to take right now.
Discussions around reducing emissions frequently become centered on whether the responsibility should be on individuals or collective society/corporations to undertake the necessary actions. Rather than pointing the blame, it is easier to acknowledge that you, me, and every other human on this planet are a part of the collective. Further, wealthier individuals have far larger carbon footprints than poorer individuals. The wealthiest 10% of the world (incomes above $43,000 CAD/year) are responsible for 52% of global emissions (2).
Figure 1: World population by income and share of emissions. Figure and data taken from Oxfam. Data is for 2015, the richest 10% now account for 52% of emissions.
These actions may require lifestyle changes, but these can be managed by choosing actions where you deem feasible and using your spheres of influence to reduce emissions in areas where you can’t right now (for personal, financial, or any other reason). Most of these will either save you money or will only require a small green premium (e.g., an extra cost to reduce your CO₂e footprint).
The Actions
The following five actions for individuals are high impact (defined as a reduction of at least 0.8 tonnes of CO2e per year, or about 4% of current annual emissions in Canada, the United States, and Australia) along with a few lower impact actions (3). Figure 2 provides an overview of actions and their subsequent annual emissions reductions.
Figure 2: High impact actions to reduce annual individual emissions. Taken from (3).
Living car free
The most impactful action as a Canadian is to live car free. Doing so for a year would reduce your emissions by over 12%! While it might not be possible or feasible for you to give up your car for the entire year, could you drive 10% less over the next few weeks? You could walk, bike, or take public transit instead. If you must drive, try carpooling (every additional passenger reduces your share of the trips emissions!). You can also reduce the number of trips you make by planning them out (e.g., don’t drive to buy groceries three times a week, plan out your meals and needed products to get them in a single trip).
Purchasing renewable energy
Buy green energy! Check with your utility provider, in many jurisdictions there are options to buy electricity from renewable energy producers (of course this doesn’t mean that the actual electrons produced by a solar array are going to go through your lightbulbs) just that you are paying the renewable energy company for their power rather than from a fossil fuel reliant utility. If you live in the UK, purchasing renewable certified power would reduce your emissions by over 7% per year.
Going electric
If you do need to drive a lot, switch from gas to an electric vehicle! This would reduce your annual emissions by 6.4%, even more so if you are charging your vehicle with 100% renewable electricity (Figure 3 compares the production and annual operation emissions for internal combustion engines vs electric vehicles [EV]). There’s never been a better time to purchase an EV than now (especially if it’s your first car)! There are a range of EV options on the market, government incentives to purchase EVs, along with more and more charging stations being built every year.
Figure 3: comparison of cumulative lifetime emissions for mid sized passenger vehicles. ICE annual emissions are based on data from the U.S. Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center, EV annual emissions are based on the average US grid energy mix: 60% fossil fuels, 20% nuclear, and 20% renewables (Electricity generation, capacity, and sales in the United States - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)). Data taken from Engineering Explained’s consolidation of studies.
Avoid flying
Research shows people tend to underestimate the emissions associated with flying (4). While most of us haven’t been travelling by plane over the past year, as things open up many people will want to travel for recreation and business. If you are a frequent flyer, could you take one less trip this year? You could zoom call for business meetings, vacation locally in a place you’ve never explored, travel by train, or just enjoy the place you are in! If you do fly, offset your travel through a verified and reputable carbon exchange, you want transparent insight into where the offsets are coming from and how they are achieved. Klima is a good option for offsetting flight emissions.
Figure 4: Roundtrip flight emissions from Vancouver. Assuming a conservative average emissions of 0.12 kg CO2e emissions per passenger km (this is an underestimate for short range flight emissions) with flight distances taken from Google Maps.
Switch up your diet
Cut back your animal protein intake! This doesn’t have to mean going cold turkey (there’s a pun in there somewhere) on consuming animal products (although if you did it would reduce your emissions by over 4% per year). Start by switching a few meals a week to plant protein or meat alternatives. Certain meals are super easy to swap out animal protein, for instance switching from chicken to roasted chickpeas in pita wraps, beef patties to plant-based patties in your next burger, cauliflower tacos instead of ground beef, and plant-based chicken nuggets! Switch your intake by a little bit each week and find a diet that makes you feel healthy while reducing your food CO₂e footprint.
Additional actions
Some lower impact actions (but still worthy of implementation) can be done at home. Washing your clothes in cold water can save 1.3% of your per capita emissions, or 0.2 tonnes of CO₂e per year. Similarly with recycling properly (1%) and hang drying clothes (1%). Replacing your light bulbs won’t do much though (especially if you are replacing lightbulbs before their time. Although when you do need to, definitely buy the most efficient lightbulbs you can afford), saving on average 0.5% per year.
Using Ecosia is a simple way to reduce emissions associated with your work and recreation on the internet! Did you know the average CO₂e footprint of a single search on Google is 0.2 grams? Ecosia uses renewable energy powered servers, has a great privacy policy, and uses ad revenue from your searches to plant trees!
You can use websites like the Global Footprint Network to approximate your carbon footprint and apps like Klima to offset those emissions that you can’t feasibly reduce right now (Terra Spheres is not affiliated with Klima in anyway). Just remember, it is always better and more effective to have a direct role in reducing your CO₂e footprint rather than paying for someone else to do it.
Reducing your footprint can be done through little actions every day and decisions on what you chose to do, and just as importantly what you chose not to do. One of the most impactful habits you can develop to decrease your CO₂e footprint and your impact on the Earth’s spheres is by being more conscious when purchasing goods and services.
Start by really thinking whether you need something, even if you decide you do, hold off on the purchase for a few days and think about if it is still necessary. More stuff does not always equal more happiness, fulfilment, or joy. If you truly do need to buy something, consider buying second hand or paying more now for longer lasting products, rather than cheaper ones that will need to be frequently replaced.
We aren’t saying you must do all these things at once and reduce your footprint to zero, nor that you should let the opportunities you are presented with in your precious finite time on Earth pass you by. Do what you can in your personal life and drive actions where you work or other areas you might have influence to have a direct role in reducing emissions.
It can be done by little actions every day that will add up significant personal reductions and even larger cumulative reductions across society. It doesn’t have to be all from one area, nor what others might view as the best actions.
Whatever you can set as goals and what you can do to reasonably achieve them this year will be a massive benefit to ensuring the Earth system and its spheres are able to support humanity into the future, and you will probably save money while doing it!
Works cited
United Nations Environment Programme (2020). Emissions Gap Report 2020. Nairobi.
Oxfam. (2021). Confronting Carbon Inequality. Nairobi: Oxfam International.
Wynes, S., & Nicholas, K. A. (2017). The climate mitigation gap: education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions. Environmental Research Letters, 12, 1-9.
Wynes, S., Zhao, J., & Donner, S. D. (2020). How well do people understand the climate impact of individual actions? Climatic Change, 162, 1521-1534.