Climate change ‘can be reversed’

Climate change can be kept in check without resorting to unproven technologies simply by changing the way we live, a study suggests.

Scientists identified a range of ways to reduce energy demand that together could prevent global temperatures rising higher than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

They included car-sharing with electric vehicles, great- er use of smart phones and other multi-function devices, improving the energy efficiency of buildings, and eating less red meat.

Such changes alone over the next 30 years would make it possible to meet the 1.5C target set by the 2015 Paris Agreement, according to the researchers writing in the journal Nature Energy.

This could be achieved without bringing in “unproven” technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), which aims to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and bury it underground.

Lead author Professor Arnulfgrubl er, from the international Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna, said: “Our analysis shows how a range of new social, behavioural and technological innovations, combined with strong policy support for energy efficiency and low-carbon development can help reverse the historical trajectory of everrising energy demand.”