CarbonBrief report cover

There are various references to “reduce” and “reduction” in the Total Green Future Manifesto and Platform. Specifically, these references are in the context of natural resources, energy, travel, eating meat and dairy products. There are many other domains where reduction is appropriate if we are to take the issue of sustainability seriously.

But the idea of “reduction” is dangerously vague. While the majority of people could probably agree that we should reduce our consumption of natural resources, the scale of that reduction is highly contestable.

Clearly, there is no single figure for appropriate reduction. Each domain requires its own target based on an evidence-based investigation. However, even when such a figure can be determined, there remains the issue of what is “realistic” in terms of real-world changes to lifestyle, business and government.

Can we realistically achieve a 2% reduction? Intuitively, that seems easily doable, as does 10%. What about 30%, or even 60%? The larger the number gets, the less credible it becomes to many people.

But we need to start adjusting to bigger numbers.

What does a useful number look like? How about 90%? This is the number reached by two separate recent studies:

Climate science publication Carbon Brief calculated that children born today will need a lifetime carbon budget that is 90% less than their grandparents in order to meet climate goals.

The management consulting firm McKinsey & Company (hardly a hotbed of radical ideas) calculated that businesses will need to reduce their carbon footprint by 92% in order to meet both consumer demand and climate goals.

Most people recoil at the idea of a 90% reduction in anything, claiming it is not realistic. However, it’s an interesting number to get used to thinking about. Even if this number is not applicable in all circumstances, it opens up a space for imagining change on a different — and necessary — scale.

And remember, a 90% reduction in consumption is by no means historically unprecedented. Our current levels of consumption have exploded exponentially only in recent decades. We do not have to go that far back in history to reach a point where most people were consuming 90% fewer natural resources relative to today, and their lives were typically just as satisfactory as ours. Furthermore, we would not have to replicate historical conditions because we would still benefit from many technological and production efficiencies not available to generations past, even with a 90% reduction.