{"id":35099,"date":"2025-04-26T18:34:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T16:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/?p=35099"},"modified":"2025-04-26T18:59:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T16:59:08","slug":"individual-actions-will-not-save-the-climate-without-the-support-of-governments-and-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/2025\/04\/26\/individual-actions-will-not-save-the-climate-without-the-support-of-governments-and-companies\/","title":{"rendered":"Individual actions will not save the climate without the support of governments and businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u2699\ufe0f While individual steps in the fight against climate change are important, they will never reach their full potential without systematic support from governments and businesses. <!--more-->In a comment for <strong>Climate Home News <\/strong>Mindy Hernandez from <strong>World Resources Institute<\/strong> (WRI) explains that calls like \u201ceat less beef, fly less, and buy secondhand\u201d ignore the origins of the idea of a personal carbon footprint \u2014 popularized in 2004 by an oil company <strong>BP<\/strong>to divert attention from her own responsibility.<\/p>\n<p>According to the latest WRI analysis, adopting 11 climate-friendly habits in the areas of energy, transportation, and diet could theoretically reduce an individual&#039;s annual emissions by <strong>6.53 tons of CO\u2082e<\/strong>, which is even more than the world average per person (6.3 tons). In practice, however, these changes only bring <strong>0.63 tons<\/strong> savings \u2014 that is, only <strong>one-tenth of the potential<\/strong>The remaining 90 % remain &quot;locked&quot; unless profound system changes occur.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Limits of personal effort<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>IPCC<\/strong> warns that changing human behavior could reduce global emissions by up to 10% by 2050 <strong>70 %<\/strong> \u2014 but only if it is accompanied by significant political and technological reforms. Without systemic support, consumers face multiple barriers: high prices for electric cars, inadequate public transportation, and limited access to affordable plant-based foods are just a few of them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The most effective individual measures<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>WRI ranked personal actions according to their climate impact.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The biggest impact<\/strong> has a change in the way of traveling: giving up the car or switching to an electric car has <strong>78 times greater benefit<\/strong> than composting, for example.<\/li>\n<li>The second most important step is <strong>replacement of flying<\/strong> by train travel or video conferencing, especially for frequent flyers.<\/li>\n<li>In third place is <strong>installation of solar panels<\/strong> and improving the energy efficiency of households (insulation, heat pumps), which is often only possible thanks to state subsidies.<\/li>\n<li>The fourth measure is <strong>transition to a plant-based diet<\/strong> \u2014 going completely vegan can save almost <strong>1 ton of CO\u2082e<\/strong> annually, while even partial meat restriction amounts to approximately <strong>40 %<\/strong> of this effect.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Examples of working system changes<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>IN <strong>Bogota<\/strong> (Colombia) thanks to massive investments in cycling infrastructure, the proportion of cyclists increased from less than 1 % in 1996 to 9 % in 2017.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Netherlands<\/strong> introduced favorable conditions for households with photovoltaics, making it one of the fastest growing solar powers in Europe.<\/li>\n<li>In school districts like <strong>Los Angeles Unified<\/strong> &quot;Meatless Fridays&quot; were introduced, proving that public institutions can change eating habits on a large scale.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How to properly support behavior change<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Traditional campaigns \u2014 like carbon calculators or simple challenges \u2014 have the lowest effectiveness.<br \/>\nMore successful are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&quot;Architecture of Choice&quot;<\/strong> (for example, set eco-friendly options as default options)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Commitment mechanisms<\/strong> (public promises)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Real behavioral change is only possible through collaboration between urban planners, regulators, retailers, and employers, who help create an environment conducive to sustainable decisions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>From personal change to political influence<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Too much emphasis on individual carbon footprint often overlooks <strong>the greatest power of individuals<\/strong>: elect politicians with a climate agenda, organize and push for change at a systemic level. Only through <strong>political pressure<\/strong> it is possible to &quot;unlock&quot; the remaining 90 % emissions that individual steps alone cannot eliminate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Systemic changes as an effect multiplier<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Individual actions are important, but they are not enough on their own. Well-designed policies, public investments and innovations in companies can turn small personal successes into <strong>global decarbonization<\/strong>, which we need to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis. <em><strong>Spring<\/strong><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2699\ufe0f While individual steps in the fight against climate change are important, they will never reach their full potential without systematic support from governments and businesses.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-znizovanie_co2_cdr_ccs_ccu_dac"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}