Household actions can provide a behavioral wedge to rapidly reduce US carbon emissions

Most climate change policy attention has been addressed to long-term options, such as inducing new, low-carbon energy technologies and creating cap-and-trade regimes for emissions. We use a behavioral approach to examine the reasonably achievable potential for near-term reductions by altered adoption and use of available technologies in US homes and nonbusiness travel. We estimate the plasticity of 17 household action types in 5 behaviorally distinct categories by use of data on the most effective documented interventions that do not involve new regulatory measures. These interventions vary by type of action and typically combine several policy tools and strong social marketing. National implementation could save an estimated 123 million metric tons of carbon per year in year 10, which is 20% of household direct emissions or 7.4% of US national emissions, with little or no reduction in household well-being. The potential of household action deserves increased policy attention. Future analyses of this potential should incorporate behavioral as well as economic and engineering elements.

[1]  Robert N. Rothstein.  Television feedback used to modify gasoline consumption , 1980 .

[2]  Paul C. Stern,et al.  Psychological research and energy policy. , 1981 .

[3]  What works: documenting energy conservation in buildings , 1984 .

[4]  E. Aronson,et al.  The Effectiveness of Incentives for Residential Energy Conservation , 1986 .

[5]  Paul C. Stern,et al.  Blind spots in policy analysis: What economics doesn't say about energy use , 1986 .

[6]  End Use,et al.  International energy annual , 1993 .

[7]  G. Brady.  Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action , 1993 .

[8]  A. Jaffe,et al.  The energy-efficiency gap What does it mean? , 1994 .

[9]  M. J. Hutzler,et al.  Emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States , 1995 .

[10]  Paul C. Stern,et al.  Environmental Problems and Human Behavior , 1995 .

[11]  D. McKenzie‐Mohr,et al.  Promoting Sustainable Behavior : An Introduction to Community-Based Social Marketing , 2000 .

[12]  Thomas Dietz,et al.  Bridging Environmental Science with Environmental Policy: Plasticity of Population, Affluence, and Technology , 2002 .

[13]  Alan R. Andreasen,et al.  Public Health Communication: Evidence for Behavior Change , 2002 .

[14]  E. Ostrom,et al.  The Struggle to Govern the Commons , 2003, Science.

[15]  E. W. Mitchell,et al.  A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Mediated Health Communication Campaigns on Behavior Change in the United States , 2004, Journal of health communication.

[16]  S Pacala,et al.  Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies , 2004, Science.

[17]  C. Vlek,et al.  A review of intervention studies aimed at household energy conservation , 2005 .

[18]  Ben J. Stuart.  Liquid Transportation Fuels from Coal and Biomass: Technological Status, Costs, and Environmental Impacts , 2008 .

[19]  E. Maibach,et al.  The effectiveness of mass communication to change public behavior. , 2008, Annual review of public health.

[20]  R. Stavins,et al.  A Meaningful U.S. Cap-and-Trade System to Address Climate Change , 2008 .

[21]  Jonathan M. Gilligan,et al.  Individual Carbon Emissions: The Low-Hanging Fruit , 2008 .

[22]  G. T. Gardner,et al.  The Short List: The Most Effective Actions U.S. Households Can Take to Curb Climate Change , 2008 .

[23]  Benjamin K. Sovacool,et al.  Carbon Lock-In: Barriers To Deploying Climate Change Mitigation Technologies , 2008 .

[24]  James H. Clarke,et al.  A comparison of carbon calculators , 2008 .

[25]  Corinna Fischer.  Feedback on household electricity consumption: a tool for saving energy? , 2008 .

[26]  The World vs. the United States and China? The Complex Climate Change Incentives of the Leading Greenhouse Gas Emitters , 2008 .

[27]  Susan Clayton,et al.  Conservation Psychology: Understanding and Promoting Human Care for Nature , 2009 .

[28]  America's Energy Future Panel on Alternative Liquid Transpor Fuels.  Liquid Transportation Fuels from Coal and Biomass: Technological Status, Costs, and Environmental Impacts , 2010 .

[29]  Conservation Psychology: Understanding and Promoting Human Care for Nature.BySusan Claytonand, Gene Myers. Chichester (United Kingdom) and Hoboken (New Jersey): Wiley‐Blackwell. $140.00 (hardcover); $59.95 (paper). viii + 253 p.; ill.; index. ISBN: 978‐1‐4051‐9409‐9 (hc); 978‐1‐4051‐7678‐1 (pb). 200 , 2010 .