by Isaiah Ritzmann
Published in June 2020
In our efforts to avoid climate catastrophe better technology will be helpful but belief in technology will be disastrous. It is the true that many carbon-emitting technologies continue to become more efficient. Yet, in recent decades, more efficient technology continues to result in greater carbon emissions and worse levels of climate instability. This is because climate change is not simply a technical problem. It is also a social problem. It is a problem that we have normalized and idealized a way of life that is inherently unsustainable. As a society, we need an absolute reduction in consumption in order to reduce carbon emissions.
As Efficiency Increases So Has Carbon Emissions
Economist Tim Jackson, in his book Prosperity Without Growth (2009), points to the apparent paradox that as efficiency has increased so have carbon emissions. One would think that better technology would mean lower emissions. Yet Jackson points out that this is misleading. Due in large part to improving technology global carbon intensities (that is the amount carbon emitted per unit of GDP) have declined by 0.7 per cent annually since 1990. If efficiency translated directly into a decline in carbon emissions this would mean, we would be now emitting about 25% less CO2 than in 1990. Yet in the same period of time our annual carbon emissions have growth considerably. It may be hard to acknowledge but we now emit more than 50% more CO2 than in 1990.
Why has our belief in more efficiency proven unreliable so far? The reason is relatively simple: whatever is “gained” in efficiency is usually “spent” somewhere else. Imagine a type of car that, year over year, becomes less polluting per unit. At the same time more people each year buy this type of car and the people who own it use it more and more. Overall pollution increases, even though the model itself is more efficient, because so many more people have the car and use it more often. Growth in use has cancelled out growth in efficiency. What we have here is a case of the Jevons Paradox. The Jevons Paradox suggests that as technologies become more efficient they are used more so that, paradoxically, efficiency can increase wastefulness.
William Stanley Jevons was a 19th century British economist who first made the argument that growing efficiency leads to growing use of a resource or energy source. “It is wholly a confusion of ideas,” he argued, writing about coal, “to suppose that the economic use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.” Not only do we “spend” somewhere else what is usually “saved” through efficiency, sometimes we “spend” much more than we have “saved.” Jevons’ argument about coal went like this: if better technology allowed blast furnaces to make more iron with less coal profits would rise. This in turn would attract new investment. This new investment would could cause prices to fall, inducing additional demand. This would eventually mean, Jevons concluded, that “the greater number of furnaces will more than make up for a diminished consumption of each.”
Consider Air Conditioning
Since Jevons first made this argument his famous paradox has proved itself over and over as technological marvels have rapidly accelerated human consumption and use of natural resources. Take air conditioners as another example. Between 1993 and 2005 the energy efficiency of air conditioners improved by 28%. Yet, during the same period of time, energy consumption by air conditioners in the average household grew by 37%. In a situation where you would have expected energy consumption to decline it has actually increased instead. The Jevons Paradox is shocking but it is also surprisingly simple to understand: wastefulness comes from people not from technology. The story that wastefulness is only a technical issue allows us to evade responsibility. Growing technological efficiency allows us to continue telling that story: if we keep on changing our tools we don’t have to change ourselves. The belief is that all we need is better tools, even as we become more wasteful people.
To avoid the worst effects of climate change we have to reduce our carbon emissions drastically, especially over the next decade. Better technology can help in this effort. Yet better technology alone will not be enough. In the past three decades’ global carbon intensities have declined significantly, mainly because of better technology. Yet, over the same period of time, carbon emissions have increased. Whatever help better technology has offered has been eaten up by further economic growth. It is clear that the kind of economic growth we think we depend on, makes the tasks of reducing carbon emissions through technology alone a virtual impossibility.
Moving Towards A Sharing Economy
In Prosperity Without Growth, Jackson argues that if the economy keeps growing as projected and even if the amount of carbon produced from different technologies is reduced, we will end up with CO2 emissions 80% higher in 2050 than they were in 2010 – with all the climate consequences that entails. This is because, concretely, a growing economy means more people using the technologies more often. That means we have two choices. If we want the growth economy, we would need technology to improve about ten times faster than it is now. Or we would need to transition away from the growth economy. Given the sheer difficulty and unlikelihood – even impossibility – of technological improvement at that speed it seems like the only choice we have is to reformulate the economy not based on growth but on changing the way we work, the structure of our institutions, and how each of us can learn to live more simply.
Let’s be clear: The alternative is not ignoring technological efficiency. We still need better technology in our efforts to avoid climate catastrophe. But growing carbon emissions will not be solved by technology alone. As individuals and communities we need to purse simpler ways of living that honour nature by living within our limits.
Now is the time for our culture to question an economy built on perpetual growth. A time to work on the “moral disciplines of sharing” (as Herman Daly put it). To reduce carbon, the solutions we need will involve a wider social commitment to sharing similar to what we have experienced during the Covid shutdown. This would mean personal sacrifice, living simply, and sharing. These are shared solutions that can be promoted by our political and community leaders. This is the challenge for all of us: to bring about the collective revolution of the heart that will save us from climate catastrophe.
