Why the UK could slash its carbon emissions. Probably.

If everyone on earth were to emit carbon dioxide at the same rate as the average UK citizen, we would “run out” in 7 years.

Living like the average Costa Rican would make that budget last much longer: 26 years.

But what if we don’t want to live like a Costa Rican? We might miss the big Tesco, TV shows about other people watching TV, the local Facebook community boards. The things that add colour into the milky tea that is British life. We might think there’s no way to sustain a good quality of life without emitting carbon on a UK scale.

In general, though, there does not seem to be a relationship between carbon emissions and wellbeing.

There does not seem to be a relationship between carbon emissions and wellbeing.

Costa Rica has a similar life expectancy to the UK, about 80 years, but Costa Ricans emit far less carbon than the UK. They just seem to be better at converting carbon emissions into wellbeing.

Some countries, like the UK, manage high wellbeing at the cost of high per capita carbon emissions. Others, like South Africa, emit even more carbon per person but have lower life expectancies.

We do not yet know why some countries do so well at converting carbon emissions into wellbeing, while others do so poorly. So far, measures like climate, temperature, and openness to trade, offer no clear patterns.

What we do know is that we could, maybe, potentially, lower emissions in the UK without huge sacrifices to our quality of life. And that's about as hopeful as one can aim for on the "most depressing day of the year".

NB: numbers are approximate, this is a guide, not a blueprint.

Further reading:

Roberts, J. T., Steinberger, J. K., Dietz, T., Lamb, W. F., York, R., Jorgenson, A. K., Givens, J. E., Baer, P. and Schor, J. B. (2020) “Four agendas for research and policy on emissions mitigation and well-being,” Global Sustainability. Cambridge University Press, 3, p. e3. doi: 10.1017/sus.2019.25.

Rogelj, J., Forster, P.M., Kriegler, E. et al. Estimating and tracking the remaining carbon budget for stringent climate targets. Nature 571, 335–342 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1368-z.

*Calculations:

• The amount of carbon left to emit to be in with a 66% chance of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius = 320 gigatonnes=320,000,000,000 tonnes.

• Global population= 7,800,000,00

• 320,000,000,000/7,800,000,00 ≈ 42 tonnes per person