Prof Julia Steinberger (Twitter, Wikipedia) is Professor of Professor of Societal Challenges of Climate Change at the University of Lausanne. Her research examines the connections between resource use (energy and materials, greenhouse gas emissions) and societal performance (economic activity and human wellbeing), and she was a Lead Author for the IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report with Working Group 3 on mitigation.
Her research on ‘Living Well Within Limits’ shows it is entirely possible just extremely unlikely. Everyone can have decent living standards but only if there is equality.
Recorded: 4 March 2022.
Links
Living Well Within Limits (LiLi).
Providing decent living with minimum energy: A global scenario. Conclusion: possible to meet all global population needs with 1960s levels of energy use.
'Decent Living Conditions' (4:50) -- Rao, N.D., Min, J. Decent Living Standards: Material Prerequisites for Human Wellbeing. Soc Indic Res 138, 225–244 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-017-1650-0
'Fair' inequality, consumption and climate mitigation, Joel Millward-Hopkins and Yannick Oswald 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 034007
IPCC Working Group 2: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability here
"It has been said that the United Nations was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell" UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, 1954 here
UK Citizens Assembly on the path to Net Zero here. Wikipedia entry on the French Citizens Convention for Climate here.
Geographic experiments in ways of taking control of economic parts of their lives: Big Local; New Constellations; Participatory City.
Timings
0:55 - Q1 What are you doing now? And how did you get there?
4:05 - BONUS QUESTION: Is it possible to live well within limits?
6:25- BONUS QUESTION: for everyone to reach a decent living standard, is it necessary to have equality (or, do we need to take away the billionaire yatchs)?
10:22 - Q2. What is the future you are trying to create, and why?
21:09 - Q3. What are your priorities for the next few years, and why?
26:15 - Q4. If someone was inspired to follow those priorities, what should they do next?
29:00 - Q5. If your younger self was starting their career now, what advice would you give them?
Twitter: Powerful_Times
Website hub: here.
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Thank you for listening! -- David
