Human behavior sabotages CO2-reducing strategies

Date:
September 29, 2021
Source:
University of Utah
Summary:
To slow down climate change, societies tend to focus on two
solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions: improving energy
efficiency and developing and using renewable energy sources. A
new study compared every U.S. state's CO2 emissions with their
investment in the two solutions from 2009 to 2016. The authors
found no statistically significant difference between energy
efficiency improvement and renewable energy development -- both
resulted in some reductions in CO2 emissions when considering all
societal sectors, although renewable energy investment was slightly
more impactful.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
For the past 150 years, humans have pumped extraordinary amounts of
greenhouse gasses, such as CO2, into the atmosphere and warmed the
planet at an alarming rate. To slow down climate change, societies
tend to focus on two solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions:
improving energy efficiency and developing and using renewable energy
sources. United States President Joe Biden's climate agenda includes
a large effort to upgrade buildings to be more efficient and proposes
investing billions of dollars for clean energy research. But are these strategies working as we expect?

==========================================================================
A new study by University of Utah researchers compared every U.S. state's
CO2 emissions with their investment in the two solutions from 2009 to
2016.The authors found no statistically significant difference between
energy efficiency improvement and renewable energy development -- both
resulted in some reductions in CO2 emissions when considering all societal sectors, although renewable energy investment was slightly more impactful.

The findings revealed two surprises. First, state governments' policies
aimed at helping consumers improve energy efficiency had no effect on
CO2 emission.

Rather, states with economy-wide lower energy input per each unit of
economic output (per capita gross domestic product, GDP) emitted lower
levels of the greenhouse gas. Second, investment in renewable energy
sources led to increased levels of CO2 emissions in the residential
sector. These outcomes are evidence of a well-known phenomenon called
the rebound effect that describes when people respond to saving energy
by consuming more, negating the benefit of CO2 reduction.

"Lots of energy analysts tend to look at emissions as a technical problem
that requires a technical solution; build more efficient vehicles,
build homes to use less energy. What they don't consider is human
behavior. If you've got a hybrid car, the money you save on gas might
allow you to drive more," said the study's lead author Lazarus Adua,
assistant professor of sociology at the U.

"My goal here is to let policymakers know that this rebound effect is a problem, and they need to address it. If you're only paying attention to improving efficiency and investing in renewables, you're not going to
solve the problem." The study was published on Aug. 25, 2021, in the
journal Global Environmental Change. Karen Xuan Zhang and Brett Clark
of the Department of Sociology at the U were co-authors.

Energy efficiency improvement and renewable energy production To assess
each state's energy efficiency improvement investment, the authors used
two measures. The first is the American Council on an Energy-Efficient Economy's scoring of U.S. states on policy initiatives aimed at improving energy efficiency in households or other buildings. The second is the
state's economic output per each British Thermal Unit (BTU) of energy
consumed. This reveals how efficiently the economy uses energy to produce
every dollar of GDP.

To assess renewable energy production, Adua and his team calculated the proportion of a state's total energy consumption from renewable energy
sources, such as wind, solar, geothermal or hydropower.



==========================================================================
They analyzed each solution's impact on CO2 emissions across four sectors individually -- residential, commercial, industrial, transportation --
and the impact across all sectors combined.

The findings show that a 1% improvement of the economic output per
BTU results in reduced CO2 emissions in residential, industrial and transportation sectors, confirming that overall improvement in production efficiency across society is beneficial. There's no rebound effect
because an individual probably won't notice if they save money due
to a more efficient economy. In contrast, a state's energy efficiency
policy scores had no statistical effect on CO2 emissions in any of the
sectors. This is probably because they worked too well to save residents
money and may have encouraged them to consume more elsewhere, Adua said.

Renewable energy had a more complicated story. The study found that
increasing renewable energy by 1%, resulted in a 0.69% reduction in CO2
when all sectors were combined. However, the residential sector on its
own had the opposite result -- a 1% increase in the amount of renewable
energy led to a 0.36% increase in CO2 emissions.On the surface, the
result seems counterintuitive.

But to sociologist Adua, it makes perfect sense.

"It's unexpected, but it's not very surprising given what I know about
human attitudes towards consumption and the use of resources. When people
think they are already doing right for the environment, they begin to
lose sight of other ways in which they harm the environment. They may
also feel justified to consume a little bit more. And before you know it,
the benefit of the solar panel is basically canceled out by increased consumption in other areas," said Adua.

The next steps for Adua and the authors is to go deeper into some of the findings, focusing on the residential sector. With more funding, he'd
like to conduct survey-type studies with respondents who have renewable
energy at home versus those without it, and gauge their attitudes towards general environmental protection. Additionally, Adua is developing a
book that breaks down the positives and negatives of proposed methods
aimed at mitigating climate change, including tactics to physically
remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

"Every climate change solution has consequences. Investment in
renewables means that we must expand mining to get the metals needed
for batteries. Some mines being proposed are on land sacred to Native
Americans and could cause environmental pollution," said Adua. "My goal
is to provide policy makers with as much information as I can to make
decisions about how to tackle the climate crisis." Adua reiterated
that focusing solely on technical solutions will fail to solve the
climate crisis.

"We need to think about these solutions more holistically, you have to
think about restructuring the society in ways that will make it more
efficient overall," said Adua. "But when you talk about structural
change, people are just thinking, 'that will destroy our way of
life.' But if we don't solve that problem today, the environment
will change our way of life for us. Maybe not our generation,
but our descendants, the environment will change their way of life." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Utah. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Lazarus Adua, Karen Xuan Zhang, Brett Clark. Seeking a handle
on climate
change: Examining the comparative effectiveness of energy
efficiency improvement and renewable energy production in the
United States. Global Environmental Change, 2021; 70: 102351 DOI:
10.1016/ j.gloenvcha.2021.102351 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210929112831.htm

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