Comment on 'The climate mitigation gap

Education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions'

authored by

Philippe Van Basshuysen, Eric Brandstedt

Abstract

Wynes and Nicholas (2017) argue that the most effective action to reduce individual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is to have one fewer child. We raise methodological concerns about the way in which the authors attribute responsibility for emissions: they rely on multiple counting when calculating the emissions of future generations, and they exclude scenarios in which global emission trajectories become net-zero or negative. This may distort recommendations from policy makers and educators who rely on their study. We propose an alternative way of attributing responsibility that avoids multiple counting. Investigating the implications of having children under this proposal with regards to the full range of different scenarios, including likelihood analyses, calls for further studies.

External Organisation(s)

London School of Economics and Political Science
Lund University

Type

Comment/debate

Journal

Environmental research letters

Volume

13

ISSN

1748-9318

Publication date

04.2018

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, Environmental Science(all), Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being, SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy, SDG 13 - Climate Action

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aab213 (Access: Open)
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aac2ee (Access: Open)