See the publications page for more informations about the papers.
HOPE is drawing to a close. The results of our project will be presented at a conference in Brussels at the end of May 2018. Over the coures of two days, politicians, public employees, researchers, and members of civil society will exchange their views on how to best proceed. This is intended to strengthen a dialog between different layers of society and politics to reach the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Climate Agreement. If you are interested in participating, please contact us florian.dorner[at]uni-heidelberg.de
The final HOPE policy-science workshop took place the 28th and 29th may 2018 in Brussels, at the Belgian Science Policy office (BELSPO).
You will find (here below to be freely downloaded) the final versions of the briefing sheets synthesising the main results of the project.
- BS#1: What were the HOPE methods to study household preferences for reducing greenhouse gas emissions?
Download: HOPE Brief 1 Methods- The main objective : investigate the role of households in reaching the 1.5°C climate goal
- Analysis of climate policies targeting households & stakeholders involved
- Data collection was accomplished in three interactions
- Interaction 2: each household goes through a voluntary and a forced scenario of GHG reduction
- Information included on action action cards: GHG reduction and financial impacts of the actions, tailored to each household
- Half of the households received information about health impacts of mitigation actions, the other half did not
- BS#2: Which mitigation actions are households willing to implement?
Download: HOPE Brief 2 Preferences- On a voluntary basis, households were willing to change their patterns of consumption to reach a 25% reduction in their carbon footprint
- Households preferred carbon saving actions in the areas of food & recycling
- The greater the CO2 reduction potential of mitigation actions, the smaller households’ willingness to implement them
- Mobility generated most household emissions, but households were least willing to reduce these emissions
- Households preferences were the same across countries, but differed along some households characteristics
- BS#3: What are the reasons behind households’ preferences for reducing greenhouse gas emissions?
Download: HOPE Brief 3 Reasons- Households are less willing to implement measures which ask for greater changes in consumption behavior
- The economic impact is not the main driver of household preferences
- Households’ choices on average have no effect household’s financial budget in the voluntary scenario: They save money if they seek to reduce their emissions by 50%.
- Instead of basing decisions only on economic reasons, households consider factors from a complex reality
- Reconciling sustainability with mobility in a globalised world is challenging for households
- Households were prepared to act on climate change provided that all others do and they know what they do matters in a global context
- BS#4: What role do health co-benefits play in households’ decision-making?
Download: HOPE Brief 4 Health- Climate policies addressing households can promote health of individuals and populations
- Under conservative assumptions, individual health co-benefits occur in the sectors Mobility, Housing and Food
- Information on health co-benefits increased households’ willingness to reduce their carbon footprint in the sectors food and housing
- Health aspects are mainly motivators for sustainable behaviour, especially for eating high quality food, using active transport and avoiding harmful substances
- Households prefere moderate changes in lifestyle, though they are not the most effective in terms of financial, climate and health gains
- BS#5: How can policies enable households to contribute to the 1.5°C goal?
Download: HOPE Brief 5 Policy- Current policies are dominated by market-based approaches that individualise responsibility
- Households think that individuals, industry & governments have a joint responsibility and call for bold political action
- Illustrations of policy analysis on current command-and-control and market-based policies
- HOPE stakeholders found mobility to be a crucial issue – Health was seen as a co-benefit, but less important than other things for working with households
- Summary of policy relevant HOPE results : Households are willing to contribute to the 1.5°C goal – but voluntary household action alone is unlikely to lead to sufficient reductions of greenhouse gas emissions
