Low carbon society in contrast to a society with mass consumption of energy and resources
Yuichi Moriguchi(National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan)
Conventionally, “wealthy” life has been coupled with massive consumption of energy
and material resources.

There was strong correlation between economic growth andincrease in CO2 emission in the era of Japanese rapid economic growth.

A certain level ofde-coupling between GDP and CO2 emissions was observed after the first oil-crisis.

This

was mainly thanks to the well-known effort of energy efficiency improvement inenergy-intensive industries.
1980’s.

However, GDP and CO2 emissions were re-coupled since lateThis seems to be driven, at least partly, by consumption pattern of households.
According to our analysis employing an environmentally extended economic

Input-Output analysis, contribution of household consumption to total emissions has beenincreasing.

Household consumption contributes to CO2 emissions not only directly by

consuming energy commodities such as gasoline, kerosene, town gas and electricity but also
indirectly by purchasing other goods and services.

Labeling of carbon footprint of foods anddaily necessaries will be informative for consumers to be aware of their link to LCS.
Private cars are one of the typical emitters of CO2 from household consumption.
Both total ownership and average size of Japanese private cars became larger since late1980’s and this had significantly contributed to the increasing emission in 1990’s. Thanks toenergy efficiency improvements, such as by hybrid cars, emissions from cars began todecrease recently.

From the behavioral point of view, the distinction between mobility andaccessibility seems to be essential, as the latter is more desire-based. Although modal shift tomore efficient transport mode is often encouraged as a behavioral change, this is not effective
without well-organized public transit and infrastructural changes to more compact city.
Purchasing behaviors of energy-consuming consumer durables such as cars, airconditioners, refrigerators, TV’s and other electric equipment also have significant impact.
Replacement to up-to-date efficient models is often encouraged, but we have to keep in mind
that shorter lifetime of durables lead to excessive consumption of material resources andindirect energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Payback time in terms of cost, energy, andCO2 should be carefully examined for typical consumer durables.

Reliable information withregard to cost payback time and CO2 payback time of expensive mitigating technologies suchas photovoltaic should be disseminated to consumers to guide their investment decision.
Undoubtedly, the improvement in energy efficiency is necessary to drastically reduce
CO2 emissions from households. However, the question is if technological change is sufficient.
In our experiences, gains by efficiency improvements have been often offset by so-called
re-bound effect. In Japan, the necessity to make transition from a society characterized bymass-production, mass-consumption and mass disposal to a “sound material cycle society(SMCS)” has been recognized to tackle with increasing solid wastes.

3Rs (reduce, reuse,recycle) policy to minimize solid waste disposal and natural resource consumption has been
advocated and is being disseminated internationally through G8, OECD, etc.

Behavioral

changes towards LCS should be encouraged in a win-win manner with those towards SMCS.