US consumers could save a France’s worth of greenhouse gases

October 26th, 2009

ALT TITLES: Behavioral changes can drive huge reductions in CO₂
Cheap, available tech can drop US CO₂ emissions

For the most part, efforts to improve the energy efficience (and thus the environmental impact) of the US economy have focused on big, transformative technologies, such as renewable power and a smarter grid. But direct energy use by domestic households, either for housing or personal transport, accounts for nearly 40 percent of the US total, which makes it a larger contributor to global CO₂ emissions than any nation other than China. A new study suggests that with modest behavioral changes and consumer adoption of simple and cheap technology, the US could reduce its emissions by an amount equivalent to the entire output of France.

The paper, which will appear sometime later this week in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, focuses on what it calls “behavioral approaches” to controlling energy use. Some of these, like car pooling, don’t necessarily involve any form of technology. Others, like energy-efficient hot water heaters, do involve a degree of technology, but the tech is well understood, inexpensive, and already widely available—so it’s “behavioral” in the sense that we actually have to convince more people to use it.