EDITS at UNFCCC COP27: High services with low energy and resource demand for low-carbon pathways and the SDGs

Introductory remarks were made by the session moderator, David McCollum, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), USA, who introduced the speakers and welcomed participants. Keigo Akimoto, Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE), Japan, opened the event and talked about the background of the Energy Demand changes Induced by Technological and Social innovations (EDITS) network. EDITS has a particular focus on human activities and energy efficiency improvements, which will help address several SDGs at once. Dr. Akimoto pointed out knowledge gaps in chapter 5 of the IPCC AR6 where EDITS has leverage to inform science, including “better metrics to measure actual human well-being, evaluating the climate implications of the digital economy, scenario modeling of services, and a better understanding of the dynamic interaction between individual, social, and structural drivers of change.”

Bharti Jasrotia, Development Alternatives (DA), India, also welcomed the audience online and in person and opened the event from the DA side.

Keywan Riahi, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria, talked about the importance of demand-side solutions for the transformation toward a net-zero society. He highlighted that by limiting energy demand, “we can significantly reduce dependency on technologies like carbon dioxide removal and tradeoffs with other societal objectives, particularly biodiversity and food security, which simultaneously brings about more supply side flexibility.” Further expanding on the key themes of the “High-with-Low" scenario, he pointed out novel social and technological trends to be harnessed, including changing diets, generational changes in materialism, the rise of the sharing and circular economy, digitalization, as well as rapid innovation in granular technologies and integrated digital services.

Joyashree Roy, Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand, stressed the difficulty of meeting the basic human needs of populations in graduating least developed countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, or Sri Lanka, which require at least 7% economic growth to achieve this. Working on diversifying demand-side options will help address this need under the conditions of a carbon-constrained world.: “Just by reducing food waste and shifting dietary choices towards plant- and nuts-based and other healthy diets, one can reduce emissions to a large extent.” She added that people need to be empowered with the right kind of technology and infrastructure access, in addition to addressing inequality in consumption.

In her presentation, Nan Zhou, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), underlined the crucial role of technological and social innovation for demand-side deep decarbonization strategies, identifying a total of 46 measures in transport, buildings, and industry, as well as cross-sector. Among many other examples, she talked about the building sector, where “increasing the use of prefabricated parts can reduce project time by 30-50% and construction cost by up to 20%, in addition to significant emissions reductions enabled through the use of alternative building materials replacing cement, steel, glass, and others.”

Further expanding on this point, Karen Scrivener, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, gave an overview of the Limestone Calcined Clay Cement (LC³) technology for reducing carbon emissions. So-called supplementary cementitious materials can substitute a large part of the widely used Portland cement: “If we combine calcined clay with limestone, we get a synergetic reaction allowing us to arrive at even higher levels of substitution. LC³ is a family of cements whereby at least half of the clinker contained in classic cement is replaced with calcined clay, which has about 1/10^th of the CO₂ emissions of clinker. This comes at virtually no loss in performance and saves up to 25% in production costs,” Scrivener explained.

Taking the example of the Indian state of Bihar, Soumen Maity, Technology and Action for Rural Advancement (TARA), India, spoke about the decarbonization of the brick sector, opening his presentation by stating that “innovation is the profitable implementation of creative ideas.” He outlined a project in collaboration with the state government aimed at making the Bihar brick sector into a carbon-neutral industry by 2070, all while ensuring a socially fair and equitable transformation. “To this end, we need to maximize the use of fly ash bricks, shift from traditional kilns to more efficient technologies, introduce hollow clay bricks, use biomass briquettes, move away entirely from coal-based fossil fuels, and promote the use of alternate building materials like the one introduced by Professor Scrivener,” he stated.

Nebojsa Nakicenovic (IIASA) opened the panel discussion, reiterating that end-use changes are pivotal for a meaningful energy system transformation. He said, both the benefits and dangers of digital technologies need to be considered. He also underlined that low-demand scenarios provide a great narrative, but the community needs to make it more attractive by further highlighting human development aspects and co-benefit potentials.

Two commentators in the audience raised questions about how existing scenarios will accommodate propagation trends to non-affluent classes in the Global North and the Global South more broadly, and why demand-side solutions are still met with comparatively lower interest than supply-side solutions.

“We are not yet locked in on an unsustainable development path,” Prof. Roy pointed out. There is huge potential in urbanizing regions in developing countries, where cultures of shared mobility were frequently already in place before the rise of status-related car ownership. Finally, the speakers agreed that “more buzz needs to be created” around demand-side solutions, noting that the dedicated chapter in the last IPCC report presented a step in the right direction.