Want to halt global warming and raise living standards? Get efficient

Enlarge / There's more than one way to light a cat video. (credit: Marco Verch)

Some people hold the mistaken idea that the only way to solve climate change is to go back to a stone age style of living-maybe bronze age if we're careful. While that's not true, describing the necessary changes to our energy system can leave you imagining that we need an all-out moonshot-or several.

There has even been criticism of whether the scenarios that limit global warming to 2C are plausible, given that they rely on large-scale, active removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere. But an interesting new scenario published this week shows that even greater climate progress could be achieved without a single carbon capture plant, all while improving the global standard of living. The key to the new plan is efficiency.

The 2015 Paris Agreement affirmed the international intent to limit global warming to 2C and added a new goal to stay under 1.5 C. But accomplishing this is increasingly unlikely without a drastic change in emissions trends. While improving efficiency has always been an important part of the puzzle, a study led by Arnulf Grubler of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis shows just how far you can take it if you really dig into what it means to be efficient. Their answer is that it can get to you 1.5C.

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