{"id":693,"date":"2019-11-15T17:10:31","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T17:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ipcc-wg3.ac.uk\/Blog\/?p=693"},"modified":"2019-11-15T17:10:31","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T17:10:31","slug":"climate-change-in-our-everyday-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.ipcc-wg3.ac.uk\/index.php\/2019\/11\/15\/climate-change-in-our-everyday-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate Change in our Everyday Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Felix Creutzig talks about people and climate change, and his role as a Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) in WG III\u2019s contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Felix Creutzig is Head of the <\/strong>\u2018Land-use, Infrastructures and Transport\u2019<\/strong><\/a> Group <\/strong>at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC<\/a>) and Chair of Sustainability Economics of Human Settlements<\/strong> at Technical University Berlin. Before becoming CLA of chapter 5 on \u2018demand, services and social aspects of mitigation\u2019 in AR6 he was a Lead Author (LA) in the transport chapter of AR5, during which time he lead <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n \n\nthe ambiguity-laden task of reconciling diverse expertise on bioenergy and climate change. Felix was previously a Visiting Fellow at the “Princeton Institute for International and Regionals Studies”<\/a>, postdoc at the Berkeley Institute of the Environment<\/a> and Visiting Fellow at the Energy Foundation China in Beijing. Read his full bio here<\/a>. \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is your research background? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I studied Physics and have a Ph.D in\nComputational Science. For the past 12 years, I’ve worked in climate change\nscience, specialising in the economics of climate change mitigation. More\nrecently I’ve been looking at the link between the social sciences and climate\nchange mitigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does that mean you look at the\nimpact of Climate Change on peoples’ everyday lives?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s one of the perspectives that\nour chapter is working with in the Sixth Assessment Report. Our chapter,\nchapter 5, is about demand, services and the social aspects of mitigation. We\ntake people as a point of study \u2013 their wellbeing, their lives \u2013 and we are\nlooking at climate change mitigation from their perspective. The challenge is\nthat there are many different perspectives on that, for example academic,\nscientific and social perspectives. Our chapter will consider and assess these\nas we look at what social science can contribute to climate mitigation and what\nthe entry points for action are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Are these actions that individuals\ncan take?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It starts with people and how individuals can act. For example, the Special Report on Climate Change and Land showed that dietary choices are an action that individuals can take. Another example is changing your mode of transportation. However, this alone is not enough to mitigate climate change and it puts the responsibility on only individuals when oftentimes policies and structures are partly responsible for the current situation. Individuals can be part of the answer, but this mitigation is more effective if integrated with other parts of society that include, for example, how culture and social norms evolve, the structures and institutions around us, available physical infrastructure, like in cities, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does this change depending on the\nregion\/part of the world?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, there is a different \u2018behaviour capacity to act’ from one place to the other, which is something we’ll be considering. In many situations, people are bound by the structures around them. These could be social structures and practices, or physical structures. These structures affect their ability or capacity to act. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We also need to look at what\nconstitutes wellbeing and what is important in different regions. So we will be\nconsidering access to services, food, health or employment. And there isn’t\nonly one policy or way to respond to these, rather there’s a whole social\nsystem, within which policymaking is very important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Could you tell us about the demand\nand services aspect of climate mitigation?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s important to differentiate\nbetween demand for services and demand for energy. There is a lot of demand for\nservices, rather than energy, insofar as people aren’t invested in having a\nhuge amount of a particular type of energy to consume. They’re more interested\nin the services that energy delivers, for example, the light in their homes, or\nthe opportunity to access hospitals or other facilities. These are important\nservices. There are opportunities to provide these services in a very low\ncarbon way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What’s it like being a CLA? What do\nyou do?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There’s lots of coordinating for myself and my colleague (Joyashree Roy) as Chapter 5 CLAs! There are many requests for our chapter to deliver and a lot of input and figuring out how to make it come together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n