How can lifestyle changes accelerate deep climate change mitigation by 2050?

Global per capita carbon emissions must drastically decrease to reach the target of keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, with estimates of up to 80% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 from today’s lifestyles. However, lifestyle solutions are currently missing from our climate models. These climate models present the modeling scenarios that governments and decision makers consult in order to determine their national actions on climate change. 

​​The IMAGE Sustainable Lifestyles project is reworking a popular climate model (IMAGE) to add sustainable lifestyles actions. The aim is to provide national governments and other actors with information on how to achieve their climate targets by supporting changes in lifestyle behaviours and systems. The project is a multidisciplinary collaboration among experts in modeling and scenario development and in sustainable lifestyles and consumption. 

The project is led by researchers and climate modelers at Utrecht University, including the creator of the IMAGE model. OneEarth Living and the Hot or Cool Institute play a key role in this project by actively engaging with a group of 50 advisors. We developed and ran a multi-year scenario development process with modelers, sustainable lifestyles experts and foresight specialists. The result is both qualitative modeling as well as compelling visions and narratives of alternative future sustainable lifestyles scenarios.

Relevant links:

• Modeling Lifestyle Changes in Integrated Assessment Models (Presentation)
• Integrated Modeling of Sustainable Behaviour
• Key Insights from the IMAGE Sustainable Lifestyles Project

→ Visit the project website