Sustainable consumption and climate: how to bring lifestyle changes into the climate debate

In the USA and elsewhere, cities and jurisdictions are creating climate action plans to try to reach the goals of the Paris Agreements. In many cases, consumption and lifestyles are not central to these plans. Most plans focus on transportation, housing and infrastructure; renewable energy and electricity, much less on consumer products, food, leisure, and flying. One of the reasons is that CO2 emissions are most often allocated sector-based; not consumption-based. Although consumption-based emission inventories have been available for some time, they are often not used. Other reasons are that consumption and lifestyles are not easily communicated to policy makers and the general public. In this session members of SCORAI-US and others, possibly from C40, will discuss various aspects of this problem and solution directions.