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The
Short
List:
The Most
Effective Actions
U.S. Households
Can Take to Curb
Climate Change
Gerald T. Gardner and Paul C. Stern
The U.S. Congress, presidential candidates, lobbyists,
and political commentators have focused much of their attention lately
on the need for policies to limit the United States’ contribution to climate
change. They promote and debate cap-and-trade systems, stricter automobile
fuel economy standards, investments in renewable energy and “clean
coal,” and other policies to change the behavior of energy and manufacturing
corporations. The debates presume that these policies will reverberate
through the entire economy, and their advocates seem willing to wait—in
some cases for decades—for that to happen.
These policy discussions have been strangely silent about a huge reservoir
of potential for reducing carbon emissions and mitigating climate change that
can be tapped much more quickly and directly. U.S. households account for
about 38 percent of national carbon emissions through their direct actions, a
level of emissions greater than that of any entire country except China and
larger than the entire U.S. industrial sector. By changing their selection and
use of household and motor vehicle technologies, without waiting for new
technologies to appear, making major economic sacrifices, or losing a sense
of well-being, households can reduce energy consumption by almost 30
percent—about 11 percent of total U.S. consumption.
Potential savings of this magnitude
have existed for at least three decades.
It is therefore reasonable to ask why the
potential remains largely unfulfilled and
what can be done to achieve it. Lack of
financial incentives may be one answer,
but as the analysis in this article shows,
much of the unfulfilled potential for
reduction is achievable at low-, no-, or
negative-cost. Other partial explanations
include difficulties in financing expensive
home retrofits, limited ability of
renters to change energy use in owners’
buildings, and the average householder’s
limited amount of time and attention.
All these explanations are important and
deserve policy attention if potential savings
are to be realized.
Perhaps crucially, however, households
lack accurate, accessible, and
actionable information on how best to
achieve potential savings through their
own steps. From a householder’s perspective,
a desire to reduce carbon
emissions, even combined with knowledge
that doing so has net financial and
environmental benefits, is insufficient
to yield effective action unless that person
knows which actions will produce
the benefits. Available evidence indicates
that although many householders
are motivated, they lack the necessary
knowledge to act. Moreover, their beliefs
about which actions are most beneficial
are often mistaken, and the most readily
available sources of behavioral advice
are not helpful.
When strategies are proposed for
households, they often appear in laundry
list format, giving little or no priority to
effectiveness. It is easy for households
that want to cope with rising gasoline
prices and heating and cooling bills to
respond by taking small actions under the
impression they are saving energy, while
they are actually making a negligible dent
in their personal energy consumption.
What are the most effective actions that
households can take to save energy, and
how can policymakers at all levels help
households achieve these savings?
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