Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-5 (section)

=== Social Aspects of Demand-side Mitigation Actions ===

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'''''Decent living standards and well-being''''' '''for all are achievable through the implementation of high-efficiency low demand mitigation pathways (''' '''''medium confidence''''' ''').''' Decent living standards (DLS) – a benchmark of minimum material conditions for human well-being – overlaps with many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Minimum requirements of energy use consistent with enabling well-being for all is between 20 and 50 GJ per person per year (cap –1 yr –1 ) depending on the context. {5.2.2.1, 5.2.2.2, Box 5.3}

'''Providing better services with less energy and resource input has high technical potential and is consistent with providing well-being for all (''' '''''medium confidence''''' ''').''' Assessment of 19 demand-side mitigation options and 18 different constituents of well-being show that positive impacts on well-being outweigh negative ones by a factor of 11. {5.2, 5.2.3, Figure 5.6}

'''Demand-side mitigation options bring multiple interacting benefits''' '''(''' '''''high confidence''''' ''').''' Energy services to meet human needs for nutrition, shelter, health, and so on are met in many different ways, with different emissions implications that depend on local contexts, cultures, geography, available technologies, and social preferences. In the near term, many less-developed countries and poor people everywhere require better access to safe and low-emissions energy sources to ensure decent living standards and increase energy savings from service improvements by about 20–25%. {5.2, 5.4.5, Figure 5.3, Figure 5.4, Figure 5.5, Figure 5.6, Box 5.2, Box 5.3}

'''Granular technologies and decentralised energy end use, characterised by modularity, small unit sizes and small unit costs, diffuse faster into markets and are associated with faster technological learning benefits, greater efficiency, more opportunities to escape technological lock-in, and greater employment (''' '''''high confidence''''' ''')''' '''''.''''' Examples include solar photovoltaic systems, batteries, and thermal heat pumps. {5.3, 5.5, 5.5.3}

'''Wealthy individuals contribute disproportionately to higher emissions and have a high potential for emissions reductions while maintaining decent living standards and well-being (''' '''''high confidence''''' ''')''' '''''.''''' Individuals with high socio-economic status are capable of reducing their GHG emissions by becoming role models of low-carbon lifestyles, investing in low-carbon businesses, and advocating for stringent climate policies. {5.4.1, 5.4.3, 5.4.4, Figure 5.14}

'''Demand-side solutions require both motivation and capacity for change (''' '''''high confidence''''' ''').''' Motivation by individuals or households worldwide to change energy consumption behaviour is generally low. Individual behavioural change is insufficient for climate change mitigation unless embedded in structural and cultural change. Different factors influence individual motivation and capacity for change in different demographics and geographies. These factors go beyond traditional socio-demographic and economic predictors and include psychological variables such as awareness, perceived risk, subjective and social norms, values, and perceived behavioural control. Behavioural nudges promote easy behaviour change, for example ‘Improve ''’'' actions such as making investments in energy efficiency, but fail to motivate harder lifestyle changes ( ''high confidence'' ). {5.4}

'''Meta-analyses demonstrate that behavioural interventions, including the way choices are presented to consumers,''' [[#footnote-001|1]] '''work synergistically with price signals, making the combination more effective (''' '''''medium confidence''''' ''').''' Behavioural interventions through nudges, and alternative ways of redesigning and motivating decisions, alone provide small to medium contributions to reduce energy consumption and GHG emissions. Green defaults, such as automatic enrolment in ‘green energy’ provision, are highly effective. Judicious labelling, framing, and communication of social norms can also increase the effect of mandates, subsidies, or taxes. {5.4, 5.4.1, Table 5.3a, Table 5.3b}

'''Coordinated change in several domains leads to the emergence of new low-carbon configurations with cascading mitigation effects''' '''(''' '''''high confidence''''' ''')''' '''''.''''' Demand-side transitions involve interacting and sometimes antagonistic processes on the behavioural, socio-cultural, institutional, business, and technological dimensions. Individual- or sectoral-level change may be stymied by reinforcing social, infrastructural, and cultural lock-ins. Coordinating the way choices are presented to end users and planners, physical infrastructures, new technologies and related business models can rapidly realise system-level change. {5.4.2, 5.4.3, 5.4.4, 5.4.5, 5.5}

'''Cultural change, in combination with new or adapted infrastructure, is necessary to enable and realise many ‘Avoid’ and ‘Shift’ options (''' '''''medium confidence''''' ''').''' By drawing support from diverse actors, narratives of change can enable coalitions to form, providing the basis for social movements to campaign in favour of (or against) societal transformations. People act and contribute to climate change mitigation in their diverse capacities as consumers, citizens, professionals, role models, investors, and policymakers. {5.4, 5.5, 5.6}

'''Collective action as part of social or lifestyle movements underpins system change (''' '''''high confidence''''' ''').''' Collective action and social organising are crucial to shift the possibility space of public policy on climate change mitigation. For example, climate strikes have given voice to youth in more than 180 countries. In other instances, mitigation policies allow the active participation of all stakeholders, resulting in building social trust, new coalitions, legitimising change, and thus initiate a positive cycle in climate governance capacity and policies. {5.4.2, Figure 5.14}

'''Transition pathways and changes in social norms often start with pilot experiments led by dedicated individuals and niche groups (''' '''''high confidence''''' ''').''' Collectively, such initiatives can find entry points to prompt policy, infrastructure, and policy reconfigurations, supporting the further uptake of technological and lifestyle innovations. Individuals’ agency is central as social change agents and narrators of meaning. These bottom-up socio-cultural forces catalyse a supportive policy environment, which enables changes. {5.5.2}

'''The current effects of climate change, as well as some mitigation strategies, are threatening the viability of existing business practices, while some corporate efforts also delay mitigation action (''' '''''medium confidence''''' ''')''' . Policy packages that include job creation programmes help to preserve social trust, livelihoods, respect, and dignity of all workers and employees involved. Business models that protect rent-extracting behaviour may sometimes delay political action. Corporate advertisement and marketing strategies may also attempt to deflect corporate responsibility to individuals or aim to appropriate climate care sentiments in their own brand building. {5.4.3, 5.6.4}

'''Middle actors – professionals, experts, and regulators – play a crucial, albeit underestimated and underutilised, role in establishing low-carbon standards and practices (''' '''''medium confidence''''' ''').''' Building managers, landlords, energy efficiency advisers, technology installers, and car dealers influence patterns of mobility and energy consumption by acting as middle actors or intermediaries in the provision of building or mobility services and need greater capacity and motivation to play this role. {5.4.3}

'''Social influencers and thought leaders can increase the adoption of low-carbon technologies, behaviours, and lifestyles (''' '''''high confidence''''' ''').''' Preferences are malleable and can align with a cultural shift. The modelling of such shifts by salient and respected community members can help bring about changes in different service provisioning systems. Between 10% and 30% of committed individuals are required to set new social norms. {5.2.1, 5.4}

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