Human well‐being and climate change mitigation

Abstract

Climate change mitigation research is fundamentally motivated by the preservation of human lives and the environmental conditions which enable them. However, the field has to date rather superficial in its appreciation of theoretical claims in well-being thought, with deep implications for the framing of mitigation priorities, policies, and research. Major strands of well-being thought are hedonic wellbeing-typically referred to as happiness or subjective well-being-and eudaimonic well-being, which includes theories of human needs, capabilities, and multidimensional poverty. Aspects of each can be found in political and procedural accounts such as the Sustainable Development Goals. Situating these concepts within the challenges of addressing climate change, the choice of approach is highly consequential for: (1) understanding inter-and intra-generational equity;(2) defining appropriate mitigation strategies; and (3) conceptualizing the sociotechnical provisioning systems that convert biophysical resources into well-being outcomes. Eudaimonic approaches emphasize the importance of consumption thresholds, beyond which dimensions of well-being become satiated. Related strands of well-being and mitigation research suggest constraining consumption to within minimum and maximum consumption levels, inviting normative discussions on the social benefits, climate impacts, and political challenges associated with a given form of provisioning. The question of how current socio-technical provisioning systems can be shifted towards low-carbon, well-being enhancing forms constitutes a new frontier in mitigation research, involving not just technological change and economic incentives, but wide-ranging social, institutional, and cultural shifts.

Targeted policies can compensate most of the increased sustainability risks in 1.5 °C mitigation scenarios

“…To what extent avoided monetary damages associated with the sustainability risks would compensate for the higher mitigation costs is an important but challenging avenue for future research. As shown in this paper, the SDGs also provide a lens to assess climate policy, hence we see further work to design and articulate mitigation pathways in the context of human well-being, in particular focusing on food, energy and mobility provisioningissues at the heart of an energy transformation (Lamb and Steinberger 2017).…”

Connecting global emissions to fundamental human needs and their satisfaction

“…Nevertheless, both down-concave trends concede that additional consumption yields steeper benefits to the QOL of the poor, compared to the rich [19,31]. Although studies confirm the Easterlin Paradox at different geographical scopes [12,24,32], they generally overlook using subjective life satisfaction as an adequate proxy for needs satisfaction [31,33], and of using economic proxies for resource use (SI1 and SI5).…”

Sustainable Development, Wellbeing and Material Consumption: A Stoic Perspective

“…This bias towards growth is evidenced in the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals declaration [5], where the word is mentioned somewhat contradictorily (sustained growth, being sustainable) 17 times. This occurs, despite the evident presence of key aspects of eudaimonia in the premise and attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as identified by Lamb and Steinberger (2017). The following is just one example:…”

“…Under Stoicism, the acquisition of goods and services is not only a preferred indifferent but also carries a moral component, in that one's preferences, if they do not benefit the whole, do not and cannot maximise utility for the consumer. This is particularly true, as its runs contrary to a Stoic's perception of nature, if consumption forms part or a zero sum game or, as Lamb and Steinberger [60] observe, a competitive means to acquire social status through the possession of "scarce" or "desirable" goods.…”

“…Further, and if its holistic depiction symbolises eudaimonia, as Brand-Correa and Steinberger [69] and Lamb and Steinberger [60] testify, then like virtue (in the singular) it is something to keep in the mind's eye and actively progress towards, without the promise that it will ever be fully realised. This is especially true as science steadily uncovers the existing gaps of knowledge that underlie the physical reality of the universe, including the nature of those that occupy it.…”