What It Will Take for Rich Countries to Reach Net Zero: You

(Bloomberg) -- If you live in the UK, your dishwasher and fridge’s carbon footprint has shrunk by a lot, largely because the government and companies have spent billions of pounds to install wind and solar power. Over the past 35 years, that switch has helped cut emissions from electricity generation by 80%. 

Pollution from your car and your boiler has fallen too — but not by nearly as much, unless you have also ditched your fossil-fuel burning technology in favor of cleaner alternatives. Overall, emissions from homes and cars dropped by a third and a sixth since 1990, respectively. 

That needs to change, the government’s official climate advisers said in their carbon projections last month. If the UK is to meet its goals of an 87% emissions cut by 2040 and net zero by 2050, consumers must play a bigger role.

Many rich economies such as the UK have made big strides in cleaning up their power supply, but their populations still live high-carbon lifestyles. Unlike less wealthy peers still working towards a coal-free grid, this cluster of mostly European nations now faces a new challenge: persuading the public to live differently. 

“The remaining cuts we need to make to domestic emissions involve sectors, and choices, and changes in technologies, and to some extent in lifestyles, that have a real impact and bearing on our lives day to day,” says Toby Park, a behavioral science expert who has advised the UK government on reducing consumer emissions.

The UK’s climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee, have tried to put a concrete figure on consumers’ share of the overall carbon-cutting needed for the country to reach net zero by 2050 — 136 metric tons, or roughly one-third of the total.

The advisers also plotted how British households get there. Switching to EVs and heat pumps accounts for more than two-thirds of the needed cuts, while driving less and eating less meat and dairy make up the balance. 

To meet these goals, heat pump and EV sales need to increase by a lot in the next 15 years — something the CCC says is achievable. It only took a few years, it points out, for consumers to adopt other lifestyle-altering technologies such as the internet, mobile phones and refrigerators.

The difficulty here, says Park, who advises on consumer carbon reduction at consulting firm Behavioural Insights Team, is that those felt like obvious switches: products that were clearly better, cheaper or more convenient than their predecessors. For heat pumps and electric cars, that hasn’t so far been the case. 

EVs have been on dealership floors for two decades, but so far make up 5% of cars on UK roads, far short of the 80% share they need to reach by 2040 to keep the country within its carbon budget. That’s starting to change, though. As EV costs drop, sales are quickly ramping up — last month, one in four new cars sold in the UK was electric. 

Heat pumps are a trickier prospect. UK households have been slow to install them, and more than two-thirds rely on gas boilers for heat. Switching to a heat pump usually takes longer and is more disruptive than replacing a gas boiler, installers are in short supply and the technology is unfamiliar. In order for the share of households with heat pumps to go from 1% now to its goal of 50% by 2040, the CCC says consumers will need to be enticed with subsidies. 

But the government can’t cover the full cost of the transition. Officials should also rally public support, as has been done in previous crises such as war efforts and the Covid pandemic, says Ruth Townend, an environmental researcher at Chatham House. “It needs to be clear that there is a plan in which the public have a role to play, and in which they are being enabled and supported to do so, in a way that’s fair across society.”

The UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has already started working on a message. The 2050 target is legally binding. If the country misses it because consumers don’t do their part, the government is subject to lawsuits. 

Earlier this month, the department rolled out an ad for its £7,500 ($9,400) heat pump grant featuring ordinary people, animated to look like they’re made from wool, talking about what they like about their new heat pump. “The house is a nice temperature all day now. The cats love it,” said one. “It’s a lot more environmentally friendly than my boiler, and just a smooth sort of heat,” said another. If they switch over, the ad says, homeowners can “feel all warm and fuzzy inside.” 

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