Odds aren't good
University of Groningen
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With eight billion people, we use a lot of the Earth's resources in ways that are likely unsustainable. Klaus Hubacek, Professor of Science, Technology and Society at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, takes stock of the situation.
How much land, water, and other
resources does our lifestyle require? And how can we adapt this lifestyle to
stay within the limits of what the Earth can give? It is possible, Hubacek
shows, but it will require policies based on scientific evidence.
Our consumption patterns affect the environment, that much we know. A clear example is the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It has been rising at an increasingly faster rate since the 1960s, resulting in global warming, along with all its dire consequences. There is a limit to the amount of consumption the Earth can support, and in 2009, scientists defined nine 'planetary boundaries' as indicators of when we have reached that limit.
Crossing them may lead to irreversible damage to the Earth's
stability and resilience. These planetary boundaries include indicators such as
ocean acidification and the global use of fresh water. In 2023, six of these
planetary boundaries had already been crossed.
Hubacek has devoted his academic career to studying how
humanity is performing in terms of these planetary boundaries, and what needs
to change to prevent us from crossing them even further. According to him, 'the
basic calculation is: given a certain number of people on the planet and the
planetary boundaries, how much can we consume to stay inside these limits?'.
The divide between rich and poor
At the moment, the richest one per cent of the world's
population produces 50 times more greenhouse gasses than the four billion
people in the bottom 50 per cent. The divide between the rich and the poor on
this planet is a common thread in Hubacek's work. He is one of the authors of a
paper, published in the journal Nature on 13 November, that
describes this issue. Using an extensive dataset covering up to 201 consumption
groups across 168 countries, the paper analyses the impact of spending patterns
on six key environmental indicators.
The analysis reveals how different consumer behaviours
contribute to planetary transgressions, and concludes that if the world's top
20 per cent of consumers shifted their consumption habits toward more
sustainable patterns found within their group, they could reduce their
environmental impact by 25 to 53 per cent. The study also shows that changing
consumption patterns in just the food and services sectors could help bring
critical planetary boundaries back within safe limits.
Changing our lifestyle to stay within the boundaries
In previous papers, Hubacek researched specific solutions
that could help us balance our lives to better deal with the planetary
boundaries. In a study published last August, he showed that if a diet with
less red meat and more legumes and nuts was adopted by the richest part of the
world, food-driven emissions would fall by 17 per cent, even when the
inhabitants of poorer nations increase their meat consumption.
And just last month, Hubacek co-authored a paper describing
how the livestock sector is dangerously transgressing several of the planetary
boundaries. The paper argues that any measures to counter this negative effect
should be 'region-specific': 'Obviously, there will be differences. A
plant-based diet is not suitable for traditional Mongolian nomads, who depend
on yaks and their milk.'
Hubacek keeps pointing to solutions when he identifies
transgressions of planetary boundaries. 'However, we shouldn't focus so much on
creating new technical solutions, as there are already so many solutions which
we don't implement,' he argues. 'And most governments subsidize bad behaviour.'
For example, subsidies for fossil fuels globally are overcompensating for the
mitigation effect that we achieve through carbon pricing such as carbon taxes
and carbon trading schemes. 'And there are also many inconsistent policies,
such as stimulating the use of heat pumps and, at the same time, raising the
price of the electricity they use.'
It is possible
What Hubacek shows is that not all hope is lost:
humanity can stay within the planetary boundaries. But it
seems that there is little political will to tackle issues such as climate
change. Hubacek: 'This worries me. And it causes real fear in the younger
generation.' Hubacek underlines that his science is not activism-driven. 'I'm
doing this work first and foremost because of my academic interest. But I also
don't want to waste my time on something that is meaningless. What we need are
evidence-based policies.'
Peipei Tian, Honglin Zhong, Xiangjie Chen, Kuishuang
Feng, Laixiang Sun, Ning Zhang, Xuan Shao, Yu Liu & Klaus Hubacek: Keeping
the global consumption within the planetary boundaries. Nature, 13
November 2024.
Materials provided by University of Groningen. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.
