Cheaper Ways for Citizens to Help With the 2025 Goals

Written By Admin

We are all waiting for methods for energy to get cheaper (which will probably happen through higher efficiency, or higher supply through more total energy being produced. In the short and medium term this could be coal, oil, gas, if they are under the international 2025 goals; in the medium and long-term, renewables (because they take 1-1.5 years to build), especially on-demand renewables and renewables that need to be spaced out across land).

However, did you know that there are cheaper ways that citizens can help prevent climate change?

The problem with this is that there are 600-650 recommended climate change actions, which is overwhelming and feels challenging.

However, the above also means that > citizens can choose the cheaper ones first

The easiest way to help prevent climate change would be searching for 5 climate change goals you could potentially do that week, allocating a certain amount of time (depending on your energy), and trying some of the 5 things you wrote down during the time you allocated- businesses governments might do this differently. Please also print this page (double sided) and keep as a resource.

Therefore, if you create stages out of Project Drawdowns methods (e.g. the stages shown below), then UNEP’s Six Sector Solution can be methods to support achieving this.

Stage 1

(for civilians)

Reduced Food Waste 102.20

Plant-Rich Diets 103.11

Protection of Tipping Point %s- this is really helpful

Grid Flexibility - it might take time for worldwide huge scale renewable farms to happen in practice, so there are other methods for civilians for how to get climate change to reduce. Energy suppliers preparing as much as they can for the increase in rooftop solar panels and more variable renewable energy sources would be helpful.

Working from home days 4.43 For example, telepresence and holding meetings over videoconference

Public Transit 15.42  If you wear warm enough/ cool enough clothes, this means an extra hour or two in your day to do things you want during this time

The following are investments that reduce your energy bills, but these are only if you have researched costs/benefits properly:

Rooftop Solar Panels/ Distributed Solar Photovoltaics 64.86  This would be after researching government incentives and after making sure to spend a lot of time looking at hundreds of rooftop solar panels online and being really, really, really specific about how exactly they look on your house and where they are placed

High-Efficiency Heat Pumps 9.05 This would be using government incentives and could potentially save you a lot of energy- they take hot air outside in summer

Solar Hot Water 13.73  These work by heating hot water on your roof so that you use less energy and can save 1/3 of your energy.

Insulation 18.54  This is an incredibly important part of keeping your house warm in winter and cool in summer

LED Lighting 15.69 A cheap investment in lowering energy bills

Alternative Refrigerants  48.75 If you are thinking about getting a more energy efficient air conditioner/ heater and you can afford it, this could be a lot cheaper for energy

High-Performance Glass  11.34 Doing this for the whole house might be expensive, but doing this for the main rooms that have the doors closed in winter could save money

Smart Thermostats 7.25  A good investment in lowering energy

Low-Flow Fixtures 1.52 Decreases the amount of water you use

Family Planning and Education 68.90 

Clean Cooking 76.34 

Recycling 11.29 

Reduced Plastics 5.40 

Things that could help achieve the above (from UNEP’s Six Sector Solution):

  • Buy only what you can eat or save

  • Plan meals, write shopping lists, use portion-sizing tools for rice and pasta and cook with leftovers, embrace ugly vegetables, store food to maximize freshness, including by freezing food when appropriate if possible

  • Advocate for waste reduction across food supply, including what consumers do

  • Practice a diet that reduces forest habitat loss and degradation purchasing products with deforestation-free ingredients, when possible

  • Skim read some of the reports and stories in the 6 Sector Solution, such as How to feed 10 billion people, Transforming global food systems, 10 things you should know about industrial farming, etc

  • Find out where your home loses energy and take steps to address it

  • Understand how much electricity and energy you use and try to consume less of it

  • Seal windows and doors, stop thermal bridges through insulation, install double-glazed windows, invest in heat pumps and keep doors closed in heated rooms

  • Understand efficiency performance when buying new appliances, especially air conditioners.

 

  • Ways to make clean cooking cheaper, encouraging the world of tech people to make it cheaper. It is really good for health- it just needs to be made cheaper for people.

  • Encouraging family planning and education, and clean cooking, especially, internationally

  • Support companies that practice sustainable and circular practices; for example, patronize businesses that provide spare parts, offer take-back services to reclaim used goods and use recycled materials.

  • Try to reduce, reuse, repair and recycle what you consume

  • Ask companies and governments if they have information about how they produce and source both goods and services

  • More methods have been included in Stage 5

Stage 2

(For Civilians, where it’s safe and ethical)

Advocacy for Environmental Areas

Advocacy for Specific Industries

  • Choose 2 - 4 industries to support with safe & ethical advocacy and problem solving safely, effectively and cheaply

  • Join the Race to Zero global campaign that is rallying support from business, cities, regions, and investors for a healthy, resilient, zero carbon recovery

  • Supporting Energy Suppliers as much as achievable with problem solving with what they need to do, being highly mindful of your society’s safety for you

  • Farming Industry- although the #1 priority should always be world food supply and prices through fertilisers, which 4x food. There are 23 potential suggestions in Project Drawdown, within what is profitable, and some increase farmer’s incomes and protect their resources over the longer term

  • Building and Retrofitting Industry- there are 19 potential suggestions in Project Drawdown, within what is profitable, plus options in the Six Sector Solution like retrofitting policies and climate neutral building methods

  • Transport Industry- there are 8 potential suggestions in Project Drawdown plus options in the Six Sector Solution like supporting local government initiatives to introduce better mass transit and non-motorized mobility infrastructure, and advocating for public transportation, non-emission transport, how to make electric transport cheaper, safer, and electrification of the transport sector

  • Other Industries- there are 12 potential suggestions in Project Drawdown, within what is profitable, plus options in the Industry section of the Six Sector Solution

  • Supporting Industries with recycling method %s to make this easier and more profitable, including consumers’ habits

Supporting the Food Industry with method %s to reduce food waste, including consumers’ habits

(Because food waste and plant-based diets are some of the largest Project Drawdown climate change preventions)

  • Find ways to measure and report company food loss and waste

  • Create a corporate commitment to halve food loss and waste by 2030

  • Work with suppliers and clients to find solutions that reduce food loss and waste across the supply chain, targeting waste hotspots like weak links in the cold chain

  • Integrate corporate food loss and waste strategies across your company, including by making it easier for consumers and employees to limit their food waste

  • Ask grocery stores, restaurants and hotels to tackle food loss and champion those who lead the way

  • Set up processes for surplus food rescue to transfer healthy, uneaten food to services who can distribute it to those in need

  • Share excess with services who can distribute it to the needy

  • Review packaging, provide clear storage and freezing guidance, eliminate ‘display until’ dates and clarify ‘best before’/’use-by’ dates

  • Avoid ‘Buy One Get One Free’ food promotions if they are likely to cause customers to buy more than they can eat

  • Repurpose extra-ripe foods in-store

Stage 3

(For Civilians, if it’s safe and ethical)

Advocacy for All Industries and Businesses to think about if they could attempt this process from UNEP’s 6 Sectors (if it’s safe and ethical enough)

For example: Level 1 - Getting an Overview

  • Learn more about the worldwide Race to Zero global campaign, and plan to join it as soon as it becomes achievable

  • Re-organize these 9 levels of potential tasks according to what you can do sooner and what you think is more important (e.g. the larger points in Project Drawdown)

  • The easiest way to do this is to create additional levels or write in more dot points at different levels

  • Copy this into a Word file and print off so you can cross off what you achieved and make lots of personal notes next to it

  • Understand your exposure to climate risk and please, please, take safe, ethical precautions ahead of time

  • A really easy way to get started with the above is to include efforts to plan and prevent potential climate change risks within your 7-12 safety %s

  • Capitalize on government incentives that can help you lower your average energy usage- this is really helpful

For example: Level 2 - Learning More

  • Have a read of the categories in Project Drawdown’s 100 solutions and start adding %s to find out if any of these are relevant to you

    • Especially the largest Project Drawdown areas (e.g. recycling technology, energy storage, solar photovoltaics, alternative refrigerants, electricity/ building improvements, might be relevant to you)

    • For example, a category was created below for food, because it is so large

    • This could be copying and pasting the whole Project Drawdown list (sorted from largest to smallest) in a separate document, and within your 5 effective %s per week, deleting the parts that are definitely not relevant to your business or yourself, and creating summary notes for the parts that are relevant

  • Learning in more detail about the largest or most relevant recommendations above, like plant rich diets and reduced food waste

  • Plant-Rich Diets - e.g. (1) preferring to grow plants rather than meat and (2) certain types of meat are better for the climate than others (e.g. chicken) 103.11

  • Reduced Food Waste 102.20

  • Join a local or national organization supporting forest and peatlands habitat conservation and restoration (or alternatively, learn more about what this means in practice)

  • Embrace the opportunities that resource efficiency, renewable energy and a transition to renewable energy will create across your supply chains

For example: Level 3 - Food (what could try next)

  • Because food has such a huge impact on climate change, it would be really effective to improve your company’s food efficiencies and find ways to promote employee food habits (e.g. through posters, email sections or other methods)

  • How do you integrate corporate food loss and waste strategies across your company, including finding and promoting ways that make it easier for consumers and employees to limit their food waste, because these are some of the largest solutions out of Project Drawdown’s 100 solutions

  • Figuring out how to measure company food loss and waste

  • Figuring out how to report company food loss and waste

  • Creating a corporate commitment to halve food loss and waste by 2030

  • Set up processes for surplus food rescue to transfer healthy, uneaten food to services who can distribute it to those in need

  • Encourage diets that reduce forest habitat loss, peatlands drainage and degradation by shopping locally and in season and purchasing products with deforestation-free and peatlands drainage-free ingredients, when possible.

 

For example: Level 4 - Easier Tasks

  • You could start off with the easier tasks, e.g.

  • Creating and regularly promoting some really well known web pages that shows employees, businesses, customers and suppliers the best ways to do this

  • Educating your consumers and clients about how to prevent climate change and help sustainability, being careful that it fits with what your business is already doing

  • Embrace video conferencing for meetings and conferences rather than long-distance travel

  • Arrange for flexible and staggered working arrangements

  • Divest holdings in fossil fuel companies

  • Invest in landscape conservation and restoration with high social and environmental standards as part of net-zero emission efforts

  • If achievable, invest in natural carbon sinks, such as forests and peatlands.

For example: Level 5 - Industry Specific Things

  • All of the 6 Sector Solution has been included here, but what are priorities that you can find from Project Drawdown to include here?

  • What are industry-specific things you could add here to problem solve with climate change? For example, have a look at the larger industry categories here or search for specific industry things that your company could prioritise finding %s for

  • Are there ways to reduce methane

  • Ways to increase recycling across your company and consumers

  • For example ways to recycle or reduce your plastics while still keeping the same product quality, ways to recycle your products more effectively, ways to recycle metals, ways to potentially create bioplastics for the consumers that would prefer this; asking your employees to recycle paper and plastics and to reduce their plastics where achievable

For example: Level 6 - Energy Efficiency and Research (what could try next)

  • Energy efficiency will help you to save a lot of money

  • However, please be careful with employee’s comfort and wellbeing, especially around temperature, so that they can be productive and will stay at your company for longer

  • Monitor and reduce your company’s energy usage and strive for energy efficiency; Audit the energy use and resource efficiency of your operations to identify cost-effective high-impact reductions

  • Assess and reduce your energy use, climate change emissions, sustainability, environmental emissions

  • Scale up research and development to create new options for low-carbon industrial and other processes

For example: Level 7 - Working with Suppliers

  • Influencing suppliers is harder, but if you talk to them, you might be able to find low hanging fruit and you might be able to persuade them to become more committed to regularly making improvements for this

  • Consider overlaps between making your supply chain climate resilient and restoring forests and ecosystems, and find ways to make it happen

  • Work with suppliers to find collaborative solutions to minimize ecosystem impacts across the supply chain

  • Work with suppliers and clients to find solutions that reduce food loss and waste across the supply chain, targeting waste hotspots like weak links in the supply chain

  • Switch to rail for the transportation of materials part of your supply chain, because it has lower carbon emissions than other forms of transport, especially aviation

  • Promote investments in deforestation-free supply chains and peatlands drainage-free supply chains.

For example: Level 8 - Achieving the Advanced Level

  • Join the Race to Zero global campaign that is rallying support from business, cities, regions, and investors, as soon as you are able to

  • Set decarbonization and net-zero carbon targets

  • If your company can afford it, switch fleets to electric vehicles

  • Make long-term sustainability a core part of your business and investment practices

The Gold Level- You’re a Leader- Becoming a Real Maestro

  • Scale up research and development to create new options for low-carbon, sustainable and/or environmentally friendly industrial and other processes

  • Make your products and processes so that it is a lot easier for customers and employees to reduce, reuse, repair and recycle your products

  • Become a leader in sustainable industrial practices… for example ways to recycle or reduce your plastics while still keeping the same product quality, ways to recycle your products more effectively, ways to recycle metals, ways to create bioplastics for the customers that would prefer this.

  • One thing to solve % by %, and that the world needs lots of %s for, is that it’s also about recyclable products that are safe in humans, animals, and marine life when they break down.

  • Be a leader in sustainable and low-carbon practices

Stage 4

(For Civilians, if it’s safe and ethical)

Advocacy for Governments (but only where it’s safe enough)

Join the Race to Zero global campaign that is rallying support from business, cities, regions, and investors for a healthy, resilient, zero carbon recovery.

Supporting the different types of Industries with the challenges they deal with and with the resources they need to solve climate change

Project Drawdown’s 100 Solutions: https://drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions

The 6 Sector Solutions: www.unep.org/interactive/six-sector-solution-climate-change/

1 Overall (some of largest or with multiple benefits)

 

2 What are ways Governments can help Energy Suppliers solve challenges?

How to help problem solve this…

For example, coal, oil and gas suppliers should avoid closing until there are the same amount of renewables built to replace them, to protect Sustainable Development Goal number 7: Affordable Energy.

 

 

  • These are copied from the Six Sector Solution & Project Drawdown:

  • Advocacy for renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean energy, climate action

  • For example, encourage your politicians to propose ambitious regulation, push for and support policies, speak up in your organizations, talk to friends, attend or arrange events or communities, join a local, national or international organization

  • Commit to more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions and energy transition strategies

  • Set national and sub-national decarbonization and net-zero carbon targets

  • Halt policies that support the fossil fuel industry, including excessive subsidies

  • Introduce policies that incentivize renewable energy and promote energy efficiency

  • Read the 6 Sector Solution’s Reports, Stories and Resources, such as:

 

3 For Reducing Food Waste Across Food Systems

  • These are in the 4 largest Project Drawdown areas out of 100 areas: Reduced Food Waste and Plant-Rich Diets

  • Measure food loss, create waste baselines and implement strategies to reduce food waste

  • Set and promote science-based targets to increase the availability and uptake of plant-rich diets, increase sustainable production and minimize food waste

  • Align national diet recommendations with climate goals

  • Inform consumers and producers about food choices and how to reduce food loss waste across the supply chain

  • Promote and support climate-smart and sustainable agriculture practices

4 For the Environment

  • The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is a rallying call for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world, for the benefit of people and nature. It runs through 2030, which is also the deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals and the timeline scientists have identified as the last chance to prevent catastrophic climate change.

  • Restore 150 million hectares of forests and other landscapes by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030 – the two primary goals of the Bonn Challenge

  • Halve tropical deforestation by 2025 and stop net deforestation by 2030 globally

  • Systematically monitor and evaluate the progress of conservation and restoration efforts

  • Stop policies and subsidies that incentivize deforestation and peatlands degradation and promote their restoration

  • Work with suppliers to find collaborative solutions to minimize ecosystem impacts across the supply chain

  • Invest in landscape conservation and restoration as part of net-zero emission efforts; investments must meet high social and environmental standards

  • Whenever possible, neutralize your carbon footprint through investments in natural carbon sinks, such as forests and peatlands.

  • Join a local or national organization supporting forest and peatlands habitat conservation and restoration

  • Promote investments in deforestation and peatlands drainage-free supply chains.

  • Promote diets that reduces forest habitat loss, peatlands drainage and degradation by shopping locally and in season and purchasing products with deforestation-free and peatlands drainage-free ingredients, when possible.

5 For Transport

  • Incentivize a transition to zero-emission transportation, including for cars, taxis, buses, trucks and trains

  • Invest in and remove barriers to non-motorized mobility infrastructure, like protected bicycle lanes or paths for pedestrians

  • Switch fleets to electric vehicles

  • Promote the significant public health benefits of low-carbon policies, including increased public transportation and non-motorized mobility

 

6 For Industries

  • These might be expensive- are there ways to protect businesses that need it at the same time

  • Impose and strengthen energy efficiency standards in industries

  • Price carbon — this will facilitate the drawdown of carbon-intensive technologies and promote more sustainable alternatives

  • Incentivize and mandate less emissions of greenhouse gases, including cutting methane leaks

  • Promote the use of efficient and renewable heating and cooling in industries

7 Ways to make these more affordable & well-known:

  1. Grid Flexibility 

  2. Building Retrofitting- ways to make these more affordable 

  3. Distributed Solar Photovoltaics 64.86

  4. Distributed Energy Storage

  5. Alternative Refrigerants- getting a more energy efficient heating/cooling system 48.75

  6. Insulation 18.54

  7. Solar Hot Water 13.73

  8. High-Performance Glass 11.34

  9. District Heating 9.68 

  10. High-Efficiency Heat Pumps 9.05 

  11. Smart Thermostats 7.25

 

8 For Buildings

  • Retrofit public buildings

  • Plan cities for strategic density and mixed use of buildings and urban fabric, so that neighborhoods have the services they need at the local scale

  • Develop smart systems to integrate buildings, mobility and energy systems, including traffic management, distributed EV-charging and integrated planning processes

  • Integrate grey, blue and green infrastructure to manage resources and runoff with minimal impact to the environment

  • Invest in physical and market infrastructure to better link rural and urban producers and consumers

  • Promote the installation of solar panels, heat pumps, and heat storage technology

  • Incentivize the installation of central cooling and heating and the use of energy efficient lighting and appliances

  • Incentivize mini-grid solutions, district heating and cooling and waste to energy systems

  • Mainstream sustainable building within urban and rural planning

  • Set carbon-neutral building standards for new construction

  • Read relevant reports and articles such as:

  • 2019 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction

  • New toolkit helps countries switch to climate smart cities

 

Stage 5

(For Civilians, if it’s safe and ethical)

More methods from Group 1 that were harder, seemed obvious, had lower quantities, were less likely or just couldn’t do within the time

Building Automation Systems 14.01 

Net-Zero Buildings  

District Heating 9.68 

Distributed Energy Storage 

Dynamic Glass 0.54

Micro Wind Turbines 0.11 

Microgrids 

Green and Cool Roofs 0.99

Bicycle Infrastructure – cycle instead of drive more 4.63

Carpooling 11.07

Walkable Cities – Walk instead of drive more 3.51

Electric Bicycles 1.55 

  • Use energy that comes from renewable sources if possible- getting solar panels on your roof (distributed solar photovoltaics) is a particularly effective way to do this

  • Understand a home’s energy efficiency before you buy or rent

  • If possible, choose utilities and operators committed to decarbonization and energy efficiency

  • Use curtains to keep homes cooler and reduce the need for air conditioning

  • Regulate temperature by adding verandas, green roofs, high-inertia walls and bio-based insulation made from renewable or recyclable materials

  • Join the United Nations ActNow campaign to take action on climate change.

  • Ask companies and government bodies for sustainable options; read up on their commitments to sustainable production and practices

  • Whenever possible, neutralize your carbon footprint through investments in natural carbon sinks, such as forests

  • Divest from investments or pension funds investing in fossil fuels

  • Join bike-, scooter- or car-sharing services

  • Advocate against deforestation

  • Advocate for tipping point forest’s protection and conservation

  • Advocate for nature restoration

  • Advocate for nature-based agriculture

  • For example, encourage your politicians to propose ambitious regulation, push for and support policies, speak up in your organizations, talk to friends, attend or arrange events or communities, join a local, national or international organization

The information on this page is from Project Drawdown’s Climate Change Solutions www.drawdown.org/ solutions/table-of-solutions and the interactive Six Sector Solution: www.unep.org/interactive/ six-sector-solution-climate-change, and has been re-organized multiple times to make the 650 different recommendations as cheap and easy as achievable.


Here are some places you could start:

Easier

  1. Plant-Rich Diets 103.11 

  2. Reduced Food Waste 102.20 This involves finding %s to reduce food waste all along the food supply chain, including the retail and consumer stages.

  3. Public Transit 15.42 

  4. Recycling 11.29 

  5. Reduced Plastics 5.40

  6. Bicycle Infrastructure 4.63

Protecting and restoring the environment 

  1. Tropical Forest Restoration 85.14  Ways to help with this, especially around Tipping Points, would be really appreciated by a world of people affected by climate change

  2. Tree Plantations (on Degraded Land) 35.09 

  3. Indigenous Peoples’ Forest Tenure 12.51 

  4. Temperate Forest Restoration 27.85 

Buildings fixtures and fittings

  1. Building Retrofitting  Fitting out buildings after they’ve been built

  2. Distributed Solar Photovoltaics 64.86 

  3. Insulation 18.54 This is one of the best ways that you can save money on heating and cooling bills, and if you can make it environmentally friendly, that’s even better

  4. LED Lighting 15.69  This can save you 90% of your lighting costs

  5. Solar Hot Water 13.73  Government rebates for this will help you save money in two ways on your heating bills, which can add up to 1/3 of your electricity bills

  6. Smart Thermostats 7.25 

  7. Low-Flow Fixtures 1.52 

Farming

Asking farmers to prioritize the quantities for world food supply and fertilizer first…

Asking the farming industry to check if they can apply any of these would be really helpful.

A number of these provide financial win/wins for them.

  1. Silvopasture 42.31 

  2. Perennial Staple Crops 32.87 

  3. Tree Intercropping 24.40

  4. Multistrata Agroforestry 23.94

  5. Regenerative Annual Cropping 23.21

  6. Managed Grazing 20.92

  7. Abandoned Farmland Restoration 20.32

  8. Bamboo Production 19.60

  9. Improved Cattle Feed 15.05

  10. Improved Rice Production 14.43

  11. Nutrient Management 11.48

  12. Conservation Agriculture 8.08

Transport Industry 

  1. Efficient Trucks 10.77

  2. Electric Cars 9.76 

  3. Hybrid Cars 4.71 

Industry solutions 

  1. Refrigerant Management 57.15

  2. Recycled Metals 12.34

  3. Recycled Plastics 1.69

  4. Recycled Paper 2.90

Electricity Industry

  1. Grid Flexibility 

  2. Utility-Scale Energy Storage

  3. Distributed Energy Storage

  4. Onshore Wind Turbines 143.56

  5. Utility-Scale Solar Photovoltaics 111.59

  6. Concentrated Solar Power 21.51

  7. Geothermal Power 9.17

  8. Offshore Wind Turbines 9.89

  9. Tidal Power 0.80

  10. Landfill Methane Capture -1.48

  11. Methane Digesters 7.05

  12. Waste to Energy 5.24

  13. Methane Leak Management 4.50

  14. Nuclear Power 3.64

  15. Small Hydropower 3.21

 

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