Energy demand reduction options for meeting national zero emission targets

Energy Demand Reduction (EDR) refers to lowering the amount of energy required to provide energy services across mobility, shelter, nutrition or the production of goods and services, among others, with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years, global studies have attempted to understand the contribution EDR could make to climate mitigation efforts. Whilst these studies are important to build a global picture, climate targets and policy are necessarily devised at the national level. To address this disconnect, we develop a bottom-up, whole system framework that comprehensively estimates the potential for energy demand reduction at a country level. Replicable for other countries, our framework is applied to the case of the UK where we find that reductions in energy demand of 52% by 2050 compared with 2020 levels are possible without compromising on citizens’ quality of life. This translates to annual energy demands of 40GJ per person, compared to the current OECD average of 55GJ. Our findings show that EDR can reduce reliance on high-risk carbon dioxide removals, moderate investment requirements, and allow space for ratcheting up climate ambition. We conclude that national climate policy should increasingly develop and integrate EDR measures to both articulate national ambition and feeding into international pledges through Nationally Determined Contributions.