What is the Impact of Personal Behavior on Climate Change

Aria Soeprono

University of California, Los Angeles, Environmental Science Studies & Footprint App User Research

Daily decisions and behavior play a role in your personal carbon footprint, which ultimately contributes to climate change. Learn more about the importance and the environmental impact of your habits and how they relate to the bigger picture.

Why does my carbon footprint matter?

According to the WHO, your carbon footprint can be defined as “a measure of the impact your activities have on the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced through the burning of fossil fuels and is expressed as a weight of CO2 emissions produced in tonnes.” Greenhouse gases in trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere, contributing to climate change, and CO2 is one of the most common human-related greenhouse gas emissions because of its use in a variety of sectors (Overview of Greenhouse Gases). For this reason, to avoid this global warming effect and resulting negative consequences, it is in the best interest for people to reduce any source of unnecessary emissions.

At this point you may be thinking to yourself, I am just one person out of billions, how can changing my carbon footprint really make a difference? That is a great question that often gets dismissed by many environmentalists, but it is deserving of a thorough answer. First of all, it is important to acknowledge that huge corporations and government decisions beyond any one individual's control have a large influence over the amount of environmental impact people have. Government research and intervention should be part of the solution, and is taking place even to some extent in the United States where climate change agreement does not necessarily cross political party lines (Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, 2021). Changing policy based on accurate research is a fundamental aspect of tackling climate change.

Taking one flight less in a year makes a huge difference on your personal footprint. Photo: Örebro Airport (ORB), FLYGFÄLTSVÄGEN, Örebro, Sweden

Yet, while government action can make a large difference, it is not the only area that needs to change. A system is only as strong as the weakest component. In the same way, legislation-based change can only follow from changing personal actions. With that being said, there are a lot of aspects that are out of your control and can reduce the personal choice one can have. For instance, construction, transportation, and manufacturing that is commonly associated with consumption of goods that contribute to carbon emissions is not within the scope of personal choice. While there may be a more environmentally better method of manufacturing your t-shirt, it is something that is largely out of one’s control. Luckily, many companies are innovating low-emission alternatives to products, opening up the power of choice to the consumer. Participating or opting into these alternatives can sometimes be viewed by people as costly or time-consuming, but they can often be personally rewarding or even save money, especially if changes are made frugally with the general idea to reduce consumption of carbon-intensive goods.

Choosing the renewable energies for your home energy can make a big impact on your overall footprint. Picture: Bình Thuận Province, Vietnam

But not everyone contributes the same amount to greenhouse gas emissions, so individuals with the largest emissions and ability to reduce them are the ones that can make the greatest difference. If you are reading this, you are likely using a computer or mobile device, which represents a certain amount of privilege (no, not everyone on earth has one). Pointing this out is not meant to be a point of shame, but rather inspiration that there is a huge potential of carbon sources to reduce with simple changes, and there are likely areas in your life that you not only have the ability to contribute a huge positive difference, but also share your changes to inspire others on a wide scale.

Every source of carbon emissions matters, but reducing your carbon footprint is a personal choice that depends on an individuals willingness and ability to compromise on aspects of your lifestyle, and there is not a single “right” way to start reducing your carbon emissions. To help you identify areas that likely need the greatest reduction (and may also be the easiest areas to change), we’ve compiled a group of the most significant personal contributions to carbon footprint.

Buying local food and eating less red meat is another drastic and positive impact for the environment. Photo: Food Market in Cape Town, South Africa

What source of carbon emissions has the biggest impact on the environment?

This question doesn’t have a straightforward answer because it depends on your personal lifestyle and choices that you make in a personal sense. But as a collective, electricity and heat production is the largest impact, making up 25% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, a close second to the agricultural sector at 24% (EPA).

While a lot of these emissions are associated with processes largely out of control by most citizens, personal actions can be powerful when done as a collective. By reducing personal impact of your homes heating and electricity, as well as paying attention to the carbon footprint of your food (which is directly linked to agriculture-related emissions), you can make a difference in the largest sectors of climate change impact.

What are the biggest contributors to a person’s carbon footprint?

The main contributions to personal carbon footprint are energy usage, transportation, food, and consumerism. Firstly, energy usage in the home can be minimized by using energy efficient technology and design. Energy inefficient homes with poor insulation, energy inefficient appliances, and excessive water usage contribute greatly to personal carbon emissions. Secondly, transportation is an important factor in determining personal footprint.

Whenever available, walking or riding a bike is favorable to driving because conventional vehicles rely on fossil fuels to run, which emit greenhouse gasses (Donev et al., 2018). Even alternative, zero emissions vehicles like electric cars still utilize fossil fuels indirectly through the production of lithium-ion batteries, and throughout their lifecycle if the local power grid runs on fossil fuels (like many cities) (Hausfather, 2020 ).

In the food category, meat contributes significantly to carbon footprint because livestock takes so much resources and land to raise. In general, the processing and transportation of food utilizes a great amount of energy that relies on fossil fuels that results in getting food on the table (Donev et al., 2018). Therefore, the more processed a food is, the greater the associated carbon dioxide emissions.

How much and what we buy is a large factor on our personal footprint.

Consumerism is a large category that includes everything from clothing to personal care items and can notably contribute to personal carbon emissions (Donev et al., 2018). This category in particular has a high range of impact, depending on personal lifestyle and standard of living, because those factors typically define the products a person utilizes in their daily life, as well as some of the hardest personal conveniences to give up. Although its based on the same main factors discussed above, the process for calculating your carbon footprint can be a little complicated, and it depends on the energy mix of your particular location.

Footprint missions is to empower individuals exactly in that regards: The upcoming Footprint App will be helpful to determine various lifestyle-based calculations and make more climate-friendly decision - but also see your impact. Overall, decreasing your carbon footprint can contribute to both environmental, as well as personal health benefits (WHO, 2008).

While some aspects of personal carbon footprint are reliant on the systems and markets in place, there is still so much an individual can do to reduce personal climate impact. No matter how small a change you decide to make, it will contribute to your personal well-being, and help ensure a good future for the planet.

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Sources

Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. (2021, January 05). Federal Action on Climate. Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://www.c2es.org/content/federal-action-on-climate/

Donev et al. (2018). Energy Education - CO2 footprint [Online]. Available:https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/CO2_footprint. [Accessed: December 30, 2020].

EPA. (2020, September 10). Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data. Retrieved December 31, 2020, from https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data

Overview of Greenhouse Gases. (2020, September 08). Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases

Hausfather, Z. (2020, February 11). Factcheck: How electric vehicles help to tackle climate change. Retrieved December 31, 2020, from https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change

WHO. (2008). Reducing Your Carbon Footprint (Rep.). WHO. https://www.who.int/globalchange/publications/factsheets/Kit2008_annex1_2.pdf?ua=1

What is the impact of personal behavior on climate change?