page_title: Individual action on climate change
hierarchical_section_title: Individual action on climate change
caption_attribution_description: English: Citizen demonstrating with a placard "I'm with her", at the People's Climate March 2017 (29 April 2017).
context_page_description: Individual action on climate change can include personal choices in many areas, such as diet, means of long- and short-distance travel, household energy use, consumption of goods and services, and family size. Individuals can also engage in local and political advocacy around issues of climate change.
  As of 2020, emissions budgets are uncertain but estimates of the annual average carbon footprint per person required to meet the target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees by 2100 are all below the world average of about 5 tonnes CO
  2-equivalent.
  The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report emphasises that behavior, lifestyle and cultural change have a high mitigation potential in some sectors, particularly when complementing technological and structural change. In general, higher consumption lifestyles have a greater environmental impact, with the richest 10% of people emitting about half the total lifestyle emissions.
  Several scientific studies have shown that when people, especially those living in developed countries but more generally including all countries, wish to reduce their carbon footprint, there are a few key "high-impact" actions they can take such as: having one fewer child,
context_section_description: Individual action on climate change can include personal choices in many areas, such as diet, means of long- and short-distance travel, household energy use, consumption of goods and services, and family size. Individuals can also engage in local and political advocacy around issues of climate change.
  As of 2020, emissions budgets are uncertain but estimates of the annual average carbon footprint per person required to meet the target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees by 2100 are all below the world average of about 5 tonnes CO
  2-equivalent.
  The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report emphasises that behavior, lifestyle and cultural change have a high mitigation potential in some sectors, particularly when complementing technological and structural change. In general, higher consumption lifestyles have a greater environmental impact, with the richest 10% of people emitting about half the total lifestyle emissions.
  Several scientific studies have shown that when people, especially those living in developed countries but more generally including all countries, wish to reduce their carbon footprint, there are a few key "high-impact" actions they can take such as: having one fewer child (58.6 tonnes),
  living car-free (2.4 tonnes), avoiding one round-trip transatlantic flight (1.6 tonnes), and eating a plant-based diet (0.8 tonnes). These differ significantly from much popular advice for "greening" one's lifestyle, which seem to fall mostly into the "low-impact" category.
  Some commentators have argued that individual actions as consumers and "greening personal lives" are insignificant in comparison to collective action, especially actions that hold the fossil fuel corporations accountable for producing 71% of carbon emissions since 1988.
  Others say that individual action leads to collective action, and emphasize that "research on social behavior suggests lifestyle change can build momentum for systemic change."
caption: A demonstrator at the People's Climate March (2017).
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