Exploring the Link between Consumption and Climate Crisis and Offering Strategies for Sustainable Consumption.

• Author: Mukherji, Jyotsna

INTRODUCTION

We are in the Anthropocene age, where human activity has the biggest impact on the planet. This age is characterized by occurrences like droughts, species extinction, and deforestation. In Northeast Africa and Somaliland, around 70% of livestock has been wiped out. The Central American dry corridor that touches Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala has been one reason for migration to the north. Thirty to seventy percent of the species is extinct and half of the tropical forests have been wiped out. With just 1% warming above pre-industrial times, we are witnessing all these effects, so the future is bleak if one accepts systematic increase in global warming.

Green House Gases (GHG) are a byproduct of modern life and an economy based on the use of fossil fuels. The economic system of the developed part of the world, in fact of most countries, is based on the expectations of unlimited growth and success of the economy based on size and growth of a country's Gross Domestic Product. The stock market, its size, and growth are another indicator of success. This system demands perpetual growth, and its important activities are extraction of resources, production of products and services, consumption, and disposal. The capitalist system is an expansionary system that must grow, and if it does not grow, it collapses. Unfortunately, countries are not equal in their emissions of GHG, with the countries of the Global North contributing the most emissions. An OXFAM study (Kartha et al., 2020) uses the imagery of a champagne glass (see Figure 1) to demonstrate that 10% of the richest countries are responsible for almost half of the total lifestyle related consumption-based emissions. The countries of the Global South are the recipients of the adverse effects of climate crises when in fact 50% are responsible for around 10% of the total lifestyle related consumption-based emissions.

Why Consumption Matters?

Affluent lifestyles and consumption are affecting climate change. It is agreed by the international community that current lifestyles by affluent consumers (in both rich and poor countries) are not sustainable (Sitarz, 1994; United Nations, 2002). The U.S. had been the world's largest GHG emitter for an exceptionally long time until 2006 when it was surpassed by China (Guan et al., 2009). Household consumption is an important contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Twenty percent of global GHG emissions in 2007 were generated directly from household consumption, mostly from fuel use for heating, cooling, cooking, and operating private vehicles (Ivanova et al., 2016). A 2019 report by the Public Broadcasting Service identified the contribution of US households to GHG from a study by Song et al., (2016). This study looked at data from 1995 to 2014 and found that a typical American's yearly carbon emissions are more than five times that of the world's average person. In 2009, US households with more than $100,000 in yearly income made up 22.3 percent of the population yet produced almost 33% all U.S. households' total carbon emissions. Transportation and housing contribute over 60% and supply chain emissions from services such as health care, banking, lodging, and food contribute too. Food, furnishings, supply items, and clothing are the largest drivers of overseas emissions from US households. China bears the load of overseas emissions (emissions generated overseas to fuel US lifestyles) followed by Canada, India, Russia, and Mexico. Transportation has had the biggest impact on emissions. According to a report by the US Department of Transportation, despite improvements in fuel efficiency, emissions from vehicle use are on the rise due to the following trends: Americans travel more, have many cars per household, and have fewer occupants in cars. Consumption of residents in the US and other industrialized countries is responsible for GHG emissions.

Consumption has attracted the attention of researchers and policy makers who highlight issues of inequity in consumption between rich and poor nations and propose addressing this from both an environmental concern and a social justice perspective. Huang and Rust (2011) propose that consumption should be sensitive to environmental impact and social justice, even if altruism is absent. They recommend that...