China and America are responsible for almost half of the world’s harmful industrial emissions. There is a huge amount of political posturing, but the facts seem clear. The two countries are pouring out noxious gases that are threatening the future of planet earth and both seem keen to point the finger of blame at the other.
It is easy for the rest of the world to demand that those countries that generate the most gases lead the way on controlling them. However, little attention is paid to the consumerism and greed that creates the relentless demand for products in the first place.
It is ultimately, the demand of consumers, which underpins the demand for production. Perhaps that demand is fuelled by advertising or by ‘me too’ aspirations or perhaps it is human nature to always want bigger, better, more. Perhaps if nobody had told us about the benefits of whitening toothpaste, we would be more than happy with yellowing teeth.
For a moment, consider what would happen if every single person on the planet changed their carbon emission consumption. Let us suppose that consumers reduced their personal spend on clothing by 50%. Let us suppose that consumers voluntarily limited the number of cars in their household. Let us suppose that consumers boycotted overpackaged food and stopped buying more than they could eat. Let us suppose that the carbon footprint of food production was included in the labelling so that consumers could choose not to buy high emission foods.
The idea of self-regulating behaviour is not new, but it seems that the climate change message has simply not got through to the individual consumer with sufficient intensity to prompt voluntary behavioural change. And yet, Covid has shown us that people can voluntarily change their behaviour almost overnight, if they are truly afraid.
In a remarkably short space of time, the UK Government has managed to develop a concept of the ‘Good Citizen Covid’. It is the person who happily dons a face mask, respectfully steps aside for pedestrians, follows the rules and lines up for Covid jabs. The Government has achieved more behavioural change in twelve months than climate change activists have achieved in twelve years. So, in principle, governments could effect a parallel change of behaviour amongst consumers by the relentless and convincing instillation of fear about climate change?
If governments focused more on the message of fear than on the message of blame, individuals would almost certainly do more to consciously reduce their consumer demands. Rather than focusing on the symptoms of consumerism and apportioning blame to the countries producing the most gases, they could be focussing more on the underlying disease of consumerism itself. It is this disease, rather than the Covid virus, which is the bigger threat to planet earth as we know it.
For more information on which sectors emit the most gases see.
https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
