Reducing Emissions across the Consumption Cycle and an Agenda for Future Research on Consumers and Climate Change: Introduction to the Special Issue on Climate Change

Abstract

ecent reports indicate urgent action is needed to have a chance to mitigate, or perhaps adapt to, climate change (Plumer and Zhong 2022). Climate change refers to the long-term change in average weather patterns as human emissions of greenhouse gases have increased over the last century, with resulting declines in the health of our environment. These changes have significant impact on such varied outcomes as food production, populationmovement, biodiversity, and humanmental andphysical health, among others. The importance of mitigating climate change is recognized in Goal 13: Climate Action of the United Nation’s 17 integrated Sustainable Development Goals to achieve a more sustainable future for all (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2023). Over two-thirds of global emissions arise from energy use, which includes direct use by consumers, as well as the energy used in the transportation and production of goods and services (Center for Climate and Energy Sources 2023). While consumers can reduce their own energy use via their transportation and home cooling and heating choices, company and government decisions can result in significantly larger reductions. As such, many are beginning to argue that system-level change is necessary, as the magnitude of emissions reductions needed cannot be achieved by focusing solely on individual-level interventions (Chater and Loewenstein 2022). Despite the importance of system-level change and the need to understand consumer response to proposed systemic changes, most of the articles in this special issue focus on how consumers can reduce their individual emissions through their consumption choices, with the goal of mitigating climate change. We therefore first review how the first