What’s the best thing you can do to reduce carbon emissions – is it taking fewer flights or switching to an electric vehicle (EV)? What about retrofitting your home – is it better to insulate than to install solar panels? And what about food – is reducing food waste just as virtuous as going vegetarian?
In all the noise around climate action, it can be hard to know which changes are actually going to make a difference to emissions.
A public consultation by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications aimed to identify which actions people in Ireland perceive to have the most impact on reducing carbon emissions.
Some 4,300 people participated in the series of Climate Conversations 2023 focus groups, ranking the effectiveness of actions in the areas of transport, food and housing.
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Participants were asked to rank the things they thought would be the most helpful for them to do to reduce emissions. The aim was to identify whether there was a gap between their perceptions and what can actually make the most difference.
The thing people perceived to be the most impactful was reducing the number of flights they take – most ranked this at the top of the list of 20 actions. Next up was installing solar panels, and retrofitting their home (with insulation and double glazing) – these were ranked as the joint second most impactful things respondents believed they could do.
Living car-free was next, followed by reducing food waste. Buying an electric vehicle was down at mid-table, ranking just joint ninth in terms of impact.
The public is not so convinced about heat pumps either, with changing heating systems ranked alongside electric vehicles in terms of impact.
The findings demonstrate some significant gaps in beliefs about emissions versus reality, according to the study.
The most significant gap relates to our perceptions of the benefits of switching to an EV. As mentioned, people in Ireland ranked it just ninth in terms of the difference it can make to their emissions, but switching to an EV is in fact the second most impactful change we can make to reduce emissions.
What’s the most impactful thing we can do? It’s not taking fewer flights, as respondents predicted – it’s living car-free. Rounding out the top three changes after electric vehicles came using public transport more frequently instead of a car.
No one is going to argue that flying less isn’t good, but there are six other actions that will make more of a difference to our emissions – retrofitting, going vegan and installing a heat pump all rank higher.
Changing the way we eat is also in the top 10 actions – going vegan is the most impactful food-related thing we can do to reduce emissions, ranked fifth, followed by adopting a vegetarian diet, which ranked ninth. Reducing food waste comes in at number 13.
The overall impact of reducing flight emissions and solar panels is overstated, according to the data, but these things still have sufficient impact to warrant consideration as an area for change, the department says.
The impact of actions such as switching to a heat pump and being vegetarian are underestimated and poorly understood by people in Ireland, the data adds.
Many of the actions that can make the biggest difference to reducing carbon emissions will also save us money – on motoring costs, home and water heating bills and on the cost of food shopping.
People are worried about climate change, they are taking action and want to do more, the study finds. With a Government target to become carbon-neutral by 2050, supporting citizens to take action on reducing their carbon emissions could also help them reduce their living costs. That will rank top for everyone.
