Comment on ‘The climate mitigation gap: education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions’

Abstract

Wynes and Nicholas (2017a Environ. Res. Lett. 12 1–9) recently published an article that reviewed academic and grey literature to identify the most impactful individual actions for reducing carbon emissions in developed countries, identifying having 'one fewer child' as by far the most impactful action. This action was recommended with little context considering its controversial nature. We argue that there are three issue-areas that Wynes and Nicholas should have engaged with to improve the clarity of their recommendations and reduced the potential for misunderstanding, which are (1) the extent to which individual actions in one's private life can address climate change in relation to collective actions and actions in the professional sphere (2) the role of overconsumption in driving climate change and (3) the extent to which family planning is a human right. We also suggest that engagement with these issue-areas are a step towards a better practice in academic writing on population as an environmental issue.

Full text

Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2018) 068001 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aac9d0
COMMENT
Second comment on ‘The climate mitigation gap:
education and government recommendations miss the
most effective individual actions’
Rebecca Laycock Pedersen1,2,4and David P M Lam3
1School of Geography, Geology and the Environment at Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG, United Kingdom
2The Department of Strategic Sustainable Development at Blekinge Institute of Technology, Valhallavägen 1, 371 41 Karlskrona, Sweden
3Leuphana University, Faculty of Sustainability, Institute for Ethics and Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research, Universit¨
atsallee 1,
21335 L¨
uneburg, Germany
4Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed.
OPEN ACCESS
RECEIVED
4 January 2018
ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION
4 June 2018
PUBLISHED
2 July 2018
Original content from
this work may be used
under the terms of t he
Creative Commons
Attribution 3. 0 licence.
Any further distribution
of this work must
maintain attrib ution to
the author(s) and the
title of the work, journal
citation and DOI.
E-mail: r.laycock@keele.ac.uk
Keywords: behaviour change, birth control, consumption, climate change, collective action, family planning, sustainability
Abstract
Wynes and Nicholas (2017a Environ. Res. Lett. 12 1–9) recently published an article that reviewed
academic and grey literature to identify the most impactful individual actions for reducing carbon
emissions in developed countries, identifying having ‘one fewer child’as by far the most impactful
action. This action was recommended with little context considering its controversial nature. We
argue that there are three issue-areas that Wynes and Nicholas should have engaged with to improve
the clarity of their recommendations and reduced the potential for misunderstanding, which are (1)
the extent to which individual actions in one’s private life can address climate change in relation to
collective actions and actions in the professional sphere (2) the role of overconsumption in driving
climate change and (3) the extent to which family planning is a human right. We also suggest that
engagement with these issue-areas are a step towards a better practice in academic writing on
population as an environmental issue.
Introduction
Wynes and Nicholas (2017a) recently published an
article that reviewed academic and grey literature to
identify the most impactful individual actions for
reducing carbon emissions in developed countries.
They then compared these recommendations to those
that were presented in high school textbooks and
government documents, finding that education and
government recommendations miss the most effective
individual actions: ‘having one fewer child, living car-
free, avoiding airplane travel, and eating a plant-based
diet’(Wynes and Nicholas 2017a,p.8).
In this comment, we focus on the recommended
action of ‘having one fewer child’and offer three sug-
gestions for how Wynes and Nicholas (2017a)could
have written about the aforementioned recommenda-
tion in a more nuanced, clear, and ethical way. We focus
on only one of the four recommended actions because
the reported emissions savings of ‘having one fewer
child’was over 24 times greater than the second highest
emissions-saving action, ‘living car-free’.Furthermore,
the extensive media coverage has almost exclusively
featured this recommendation. In spite of being by
far the most impactful individual action they identi-
fied, the recommendation to ‘have one fewer child’was
not unpacked in the paper. This may be because of
the controversial nature of this suggested action (Beck
and Kolankiewicz 2000) and the authors wanting not
to draw attention away from the other recommended
actions. However, regardless of the authors’intentions,
attention was drawn away from the other recommen-
dations by the sheer magnitude of difference between
‘having one fewer child’and the other recommended
actions, and indeed, further clarity on the aforemen-
tioned action could have actually refocused attention
towards the other recommended actions, as we will
outline below.
The recommendation to have ‘one fewer child’
waspickedupinthemediaandsubjecttoconsider-
able controversy. Some of the attention was celebratory
(Carrington 2017,Edmiston2017,Perkins2017), and
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd

Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2018) 068001 R L Pedersen and D P M Lam
some was critical (Lane 2017,Laurence2017,Lu2017,
Lukacs 2017). While scholars cannot control how their
work is taken up by the media, they do have control
over the information they provide in their own pub-
lications. Scholars faced with interdisciplinary topics,
such as climate change, can inadvertently find them-
selves engaged in debates without being able to provide
the contextual information that such interdisciplinary
topics require. This can be due to publication require-
ments, the complexity of interdisciplinary topics, or
the limit of the authors’own expertise and knowledge.
There was some contextual information about the
recommendation to ‘have one fewer child’that wasn’t
acknowledged in Wynes and Nicholas’(2017a)arti-
cle. The missing contextual information included: (1)
the limits of individual actions in one’s private life
to address climate change, (2) the role of overcon-
sumption in driving climate change, and (3) the extent
to which family planning is a human right. Some
of these gaps were picked up on in a ‘frequently
asked questions’information sheet made available
following the media attention (Wynes and Nicholas
2017b). However, the omission of this information
from the article came across as being underpinned
by a range of unintended unspoken (and even politi-
cised) assumptions, which have now been made
visible by the media:
‘in some ways (the article) will just reinforce the sus-
picion of the political right that the threat of climate
change is simply a cover for reducing people’s freedom
to live as they want’(Carrington 2017)
‘(as an individual, you are) responsible for bearing the
burden of potential ecological collapse’(Lukacs 2017)
‘the study obscures the single most salient fact about
individual carbon emissions, namely that wealthy peo-
ple produce way more’(italics in original, Roberts 2017)
‘the [...] study is very obviously politicized science’(Lu
2017)
We don’t foresee an end to disagreement and con-
tention within discussions about the growing global
population as an environmental issue, but we also feel
that treating this issue as a taboo subject increases
polarisation of viewpoints. Therefore, we assert that
through providing necessary contextual information
more nuanced debates can take place, resulting in bet-
ter clarity on the subject, as well as more sensitivity,
tact, and compassion.
The remainder of this comment will be spent out-
lining contextual information Wynes and Nicholas
(2017a) would have benefitted from accompanying
their recommendation to ‘have one fewer child’with.
More broadly, these suggestions to Wynes and Nicholas
(2017a) will also double as useful guidelines for other
scholars discussing population as an environmental
issue. They will enable scholars to clarify their argu-
ments and findings in order to mitigate potential
misunderstandings, while also enabling them to be
straightforward and transparent about their assump-
tions and beliefs and how these shape their research.
What we offer in this comment is a starting point
of how to write about population as an environmental
issue by considering three suggestions we will outline
below, and striving for nuance, higher-level under-
standing, and ultimately, a better world to live in.
These suggestions aren’t intended to be prescriptive,
but rather to start a conversation on how to engage in
the population debate in the context of environmental
degradation in both a scholarly and ethical manner.
Suggestion 1: Acknowledge the limitations to
addressing environmental challenges using individ-
ual actions in the private sphere
Our first suggestion for Wynes and Nicholas (2017a)is
that their article would have benefitted from acknowl-
edging the limitations of reducing carbon emissions
using individual actions in the private sphere. Actions
to address climate change (as well as other environ-
mental issues) can be taken by independent individuals
or collectively by groups, and they can be taken in
private life or professional life (see table 1). Wynes
and Nicholas (2017a) have written specifically about
individual actions that could be taken in private life,
however, effective actions can also be taken collectively
by groups and/or in professional life.
First we will draw attention to the importance of
collective actions and how they interact with individ-
ual actions. Wynes and Nicholas (2017a)choseto
focus on individual actions because ‘national policies
and major energy transformations often take decades
to change locked-in infrastructure and institutions,
but behavioural shifts have the potential to be more
rapid and widespread’(p. 1). While it is true that
individuals have an important role to play in address-
ing climate change, professional organisations, such
as governments, businesses, and professionalised non-
governmental organisations, as well as groups of people
acting collectively in the private sphere, such as social
clubs and community groups, need to take leadership
in this arena as well. Changing behaviour to miti-
gate climate change is a complex challenge (Brekke
and Johansson-Stenman 2008, Gneezy et al 2011),
as is the relationship between individual and col-
lective actions. Recommending individual actions to
reduce carbon emissions without showing the relation-
ship between individual and collective responsibilities
could be insufficient and even lead to adverse effects
(Obradovich and Guenther 2016, Stoll-Kleemann et al
2001, Markowitz and Shariff 2012).Therolethat
individual choices play within the wider landscape of
transitioning to a low-carbon future was insufficiently
explored in Wynes and Nicholas’(2017a)paper,and
as a result it has been interpreted that Wynes and
Nicholas (2017a) were suggesting that ‘(as an individ-
ual, you are) responsible for bearing the burden of
potential ecological collapse’(Lukacs 2017).
2

Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2018) 068001 R L Pedersen and D P M Lam
Table 1. The actors that can take action to reduce their carbon emissions and spheres of life in which they can reduce their carbon emissions.
Private life Professional life
Individual actions Individuals acting independently in their private lives
(i.e. an individual switching off the lights at home, an
individual choosing rail rather than air travel for a
holiday)
Individuals acting within or on behalf of an
organisation in their job roles
(ie. a purchasing manager of a company writing a policy
requiring all staff to choose rail travel rather than air travel
for trips within 1000 km, an IT worker setting up
‘auto-sleep’on their company’s computers to save energy)
Collective actions Groups of people acting together in their private lives
(i.e. an environmental club organising an Earth Hour
campaign, a community association choosing a ‘green’
energy supplier for their community centre)
Groups of people acting together in a professional
organisation
(i.e. a university divesting from fossil fuels, a company
investing in solar panels for the roof of their building)
Now we will draw attention to the role of individual
actions in the professional sphere.WynesandNicholas
focused on ‘lifestyle choices,’and only acknowledged
individual actions in the professional sphere in their
analysis of recommended actions in government doc-
uments (p. 2). ‘Influence employer’s actions’was
classified as a ‘civic action,’and this action was only pre-
sented in figures and not in the main text (Wynes and
Nicholas 2017a, p. 5–6). Choosing to focus on lifestyle
choices may have been pragmatic, because individuals’
job remits and agency in their job roles vary so dra-
matically that any calculation of the carbon emission
reduction potential of ‘professional actions’on a broad
scale would be meaningless. However, many of the
more substantial contributions individuals can make to
reducing carbon emissions happen in select individuals’
professional lives. For example, the head of purchas-
ing of a large organisation may be able to make much
more substantial reductions in their organisation’scar-
bon emissions through changing their organisation’s
purchasing guidelines than they could ever make by
reducing the number of children they choose to have.
In spite of the difficulties in quantifying ‘civic actions’
and actions in one’s professional life, these actions
play a important role in a transition to a low-carbon
future. Wynes and Nicholas (2017a) paper would have
benefited from at least a passing acknowledgment of
their contribution, and providing rationale for their
exclusion from their study.
In summary, while collective and individuals
actions in the professional sphere may be difficult
to quantify in the way Wynes and Nicholas (2017a)
have in their article, their potential impact should be
acknowledged given the scope of their potential impact
and the complex landscape in which individual and
collective action in our private and professional lives
takes place.
Suggestion 2: Recognize the role of overconsumption
in environmental degradation
Wynes and Nicholas’(2017a) paper would have also
benefited from recognising the role of overconsump-
tion when discussing their recommendation to ‘have
one fewer child’, and we will highlight two salient
facts related to this. Firstly, birth rates in developed
countries are typically below the replacement level with
population growth depending on migration. For exam-
ple, in Canada the fertility rate was 1.6 children per
woman in 2011 (Statistics Canada 2017). What this
means is that adolescents living in developed coun-
tries (the target group of Wynes and Nicholas’(2017a)
recommendations) are largely irrelevant actors when
considering how to reduce the population given that
the population they are a part of is already declin-
ing. The second salient fact is that different lifestyles
and consumption patterns result in dramatically differ-
ent amounts of carbon emissions (Weber and Perrels
2000). Carbon footprints vary not only bet ween nations
(Hertwich and Peters 2009), but also between house-
holds within nations (Druckman and Jackson 2009),
with evidence that there is positive relat ionship between
wealth and carbon emissions (Oxfam 2015). What
this means is having children is only part of what is
driving climate change because consumption patterns
play a decisive role. Following the publication of the
article, Wynes commented to LifeSite that ‘although
every person added to the planet adds more emis-
sions, the central issue is not having more children, but
the high-consumption society that those children are
born into’(Laurence 2017). This is the sort of contex-
tual information that the article would have benefitted
from, because it would have clarified why this action
appears to be so much more impactful than the rest,
and the role such an action should have in relation to
the other lifestyle choices one could choose to make.
Furthermore, it would have shifted the reader’sfocus
back to the other recommended actions.
Suggestion 3: Outline the extent to which you under-
stand family planning to be a human right
As we have highlighted in the section above, consump-
tion is a decisive factor in carbon emission production
in developed countries, therefore discussing ‘having
one fewer child’in these countries is much less rele-
vant than is made out in Wynes and Nicholas’(2017a)
article. However, it is notable that in the article family
planning is presented in a utilitarian fashion; its utility
being a strategy to reduce carbon emissions. A util-
itarian approach to family planning has been widely
criticised (Hagenfeldt 1991), given that birth control
has been used as a form of coercion and control (Con-
nelly 2006,Wanget al 2016).
3

Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2018) 068001 R L Pedersen and D P M Lam
The United Nations Population Fund has declared
family planning as a human right (Green et al 2012),
while others have outlined how family planning is
embedded within other rights from the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, such as the right to
health (Newman and Feldman-Jacobs 2015). However,
there is still an unmet need for family planning for
12% of women aged 15–49 globally (United Nations
Population Fund 2017).Theprivilegingoftheenvi-
ronmental implications of ‘having one less child’as
Wynes and Nicholas (2017a) have done has a prob-
lematic logic embedded within it. It privileges the
rights of future generations over those who have their
rights compromised at present. Presenting reproduc-
tion as a sustainability issue (putting future generations
at risk) without its discussion as a (present day)
human rights issue can be interpreted as a values
statement: my children’s rights being violated in future
are more important than your rights being violated
now. For this reason, Wynes and Nicholas’(2017a)
article could have benefitted from a clarification of
the extent to which they believe people should have
the right or not have the right to choose whether
and how many children to have.
Conclusion
We feel that if Wynes and Nicholas (2017a)hadtaken
on board the above suggestions their article would
have been presented more sensitively in the con-
text of a highly charged debate. It would have also
provided insight into the debates that their research
was engaging with, thereby improving the clarity of
their recommendations and reducing the potential
for misunderstandings. The interpretation of results
from studies focusing on mitigating the environmental
impact of an expanding population is a collective chal-
lenge which incorporates values, emotions, different
worldviews, and the alignment of different interests.
For these reasons, we encourage scholars to engage
with the suggestions outlined in this comment when
writing on population as an environmental issue, as
well as to strive for a better practice in academic writ-
ing about these issues. We would like to commend
Wynes and Nicholas (2017a) for their bravery in spark-
ing a conversation on an important and poignant,
however challenging and contentious topic, as well
as to encourage other scholars to also risk engaging
in discussions about population as an environmen-
tal issue with an open mind, sensitivity, tact and
compassion.
ORCID iDs
Rebecca Laycock Pedersen https://orcid.org/0000-
0002-5966-5141
References
Brekke K A and Johansson-Stenman O 2008 The behavioural
economics of climate change Oxford Rev. Econ. Policy 24
280–97
Beck R and Kolankiewicz L 2000 The environmental movement’s
retreat from advocating US population stabilization
1970–1998: a first draft of history J. Policy Hist. 12 123–56
Carrington D 2017 Want to Fight Climate Change? Have Fewer
Children (The Guardian) (www.theguardian.com/
environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-
have-fewer-children)
Connelly M 2006 Population control in India: prologue to the
emergency period Popul. Dev. Rev. 32 629–67
Conway D 2004 On being part of population geography’s future:
population–environment relationships and inter-science
initiatives Popul. Space Place 10295–302
Druckman A and Jackson T 2009 The carbon footprint of UK
households 1990–2004: a socio-economically disaggregated,
quasi-multi-regional input–output model Ecol. Econ. 68
2066–77
Edmiston J 2017 Serious about Stopping Climate Change? Have
One Less Child, UBC Study Says (National Post)
(http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/want-to-stop-climate-
change-have-one-less-child-ubc-study-says)
Gneezy U, Meier S and Rey-Biel P 2011 When and why incentives
(don’t) work to modify behavior J. Econ. Persp. 25 191–209
Green M, Joshi S and Robles O 2012 By Choice, Not by Chance:
Family Planning, Human Rights and Development—State of
the World Population 2012 (United Nations Population Fund)
(www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/EN_SWOP2012_
Report.pdf)
Hagenfeldt K 1991 Ethics and family planning Advances in
Contraception 7159–63
Harper S 2006 Ageing Societies: Myths, Challenges and
Opportunities (London: Hodder Arnold)
Hertwich E G and Peters G P 2009 Carbon footprint of nations: a
global, trade-linked analysis Environ. Sci. Technol. 43 6414–20
Lane O J 2017 Guardian: Save the Planet, Have Fewer Children
(Breitbart) (www.breitbart.com/london/2017/07/12/
guardian-save-the-planet-have-fewer-children/)
Laurence L 2017 ‘Dangerous:’Global Warming Extremists Urge
Gov’ttoTeachKidstoHaveFewerBabies(LifeSite)
(www.lifesitenews.com/news/schools-should-teach-kids-
to-have-one-fewer-child-for-the-sake-of-climate-c)
Lu R 2017 The Problem with the ‘Science’Behind Having Fewer
Children for the Planet’sSake(National Review)
(www.nationalreview.com/article/449530/climate-change-
studys-have-fewer-children-recommendation-preposterous)
Lukacs M 2017 Neoliberalism Has Conned Us into Fighting
Climate Change as Individuals (The Guardian)
(www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/
2017/jul/17/neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fighting-
climate-change-as-individuals)
Markowitz E M and Shariff A F 2012 Climate change and moral
judgement Nat. Clim. Change 2243–7
Newman K and Feldman-Jacobs C 2015 Family Planning and
Human Rights—What’s the connection and why is it
important (Population Reference Bureau) (www.prb.org/
pdf15/family-planning-rights-brief.pdf)
Obradovich N and Guenther S M 2016 Collective responsibility
amplifies mitigation behaviors Clim. Change 137 307–19
Oxfam 2015 Extreme Carbon Inequality (www.oxfam.org/sites/
www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-
inequality-021215-en.pdf?cid=aff_affwd_donate_id78888&
awc=5991_1514992660_c455c21fdc67bc5b9d7e58f8217
cd469)
Perkins S 2017 The best way to reduce your carbon footprint is one
the government isn’t telling you about Science
Roberts D 2017 The Best Way to Reduce Your Personal Carbon
Emissions: Don’tBeRich(Vox) (www.vox.com/energy-and-
environment/2017/7/14/15963544/climate-change-
individual-choices)
4

Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2018) 068001 R L Pedersen and D P M Lam
Statistics Canada 2017 Fertility: Fewer children, older moms
(www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2014002-eng.htm)
Stern P C and Wolske K S 2017 Limiting climate change: what’s
most worth doing? Environ. Res. Lett. 12 1–2
Stoll-Kleemann S, O’Riordan T and Jaeger C C 2001 The
psychology of denial concerning climate mitigation measures:
evidence from Swiss focus groups Glob. Environ. Change 11
107–17
United Nations Population Fund 2017 World Population
Dashboard (www.unfpa.org/data/world-population-
dashboard)
Wang Z, Yang M, Zhang J and Chang J 2016 Ending an era of
population control in China: was the one-child policy ever
needed? Am.J.Econ.Sociol.75 929–79
Weber C and Perrels A 2000 Modelling lifestyle effects on energy
demand and related emissions Energy Policy 28 549–66
Wynes S and Nicholas K 2017a The climate mitigation gap:
education and government recommendations miss the most
effective individual actions Environ. Res. Lett. 12 1–9
Wynes S and Nicholas K 2017b FAQs for Wynes and Nicholas 2017
(www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/
faqs__2_.pdf)
5