ALBERT

Description: The call for a decent life for all within planetary limits poses a dual challenge: Provide all people with the essential resources needed to live well and, collectively, not exceed the source and sink capacity of the biosphere to sustain human societies. We examine the corridor of possible distributions of household energy and carbon footprints that satisfy both minimum energy use for a decent life and available energy supply compatible with the 1.5°C target in 2050. We estimated household energy and carbon footprints for expenditure deciles for 28 European countries in 2015 by combining data from national household budget surveys with the Environmentally-Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output model EXIOBASE. We found a top-to-bottom decile ratio (90:10) of 7.2 for expenditure, 3.1 for net energy and 2.6 for carbon. The lower inequality of energy and carbon footprints is largely attributable to inefficient energy and heating technologies in the lower deciles (mostly Eastern Europe). Adopting best technology across Europe would save 11 EJ of net energy annually, but increase environmental footprint inequality. With such inequality, both targets can only be met through the use of CCS, large efficiency improvements, and an extremely low minimum final energy use of 28 GJ per adult equivalent. Assuming a more realistic minimum energy use of about 55 GJ/ae and no CCS deployment, the 1.5°C target can only be achieved at near full equality. We conclude that achieving both stated goals is an immense and widely underestimated challenge, the successful management of which requires far greater room for maneuver in monetary and fiscal terms than is reflected in the current European political discourse.

Description: Health care is one of the largest and fastest growing service sectors in OECD countries and a significant contributor to climate change. Health care is also indispensable for human well-being. It is therefore crucial to understand how the health care sector can reduce its emissions without undermining its service quality. We break down the carbon emissions of Austrian health care in unprecedented detail over a decade starting in 2005. We calculated the carbon footprints of Austrian health care providers and further decomposed the emissions attributable to hospitals, the largest health care provider in Austria. We estimated detailed life cycle assessments of the carbon emissions attributable to energy use, the use of selected pharmaceuticals and medical goods and induced private travel.

Description: Climate change confronts the health care sector with a dual challenge. Accumulating climate impacts are putting an increased burden on the service provision of already stressed health care systems in many regions of the world. At the same time, the Paris agreement requires rapid emission reductions in all sectors of the global economy to stay well below the 2 °C target. This study shows that in OECD countries, China, and India, health care on average accounts for 5% of the national CO2 footprint making the sector comparable in importance to the food sector. Some countries have seen reduced CO2 emissions related to health care despite growing expenditures since 2000, mirroring their economy wide emission trends. The average per capita health carbon footprint across the country sample in 2014 was 0.6 tCO2, varying between 1.51 tCO2/cap in the US and 0.06 tCO2/cap in India. A statistical analysis shows that the carbon intensity of the domestic energy system, the energy intensity of the domestic economy, and health care expenditure together explain half of the variance in per capita health carbon footprints. Our results indicate that important leverage points exist inside and outside the health sector. We discuss our findings in the context of the existing literature on the potentials and challenges of reducing GHG emissions in the health and energy sector.

Description: Carbon pricing is a core climate policy in many countries. However, the distribution of impacts is highly unequal across income brackets, but also across household types and regions. The complex interplay between household characteristics and location specific factors such as building stock and transport infrastructure considerably hampers our understanding of the inequality impacts of carbon taxes and the development of remedial measures. In this paper, we simulate the impacts of carbon taxes and compensation on the purchasing power of more than 38 million German households living in over 11 000 municipalities. We find that the strength of impacts varies more within income groups (horizontal inequality) than across income groups (vertical inequality), based on demographic, socio-economic and geographic factors. Without compensation, a carbon tax of €50 per ton doubles the number of households at risk of becoming energy poor, the majority of them low-income families in remotely located small and medium cities. A lump sum payment of €100 per capita and year reduces inequality impacts and additional energy poverty risk substantially.