Climate Sufficiency

Hot or Cool Institute and partner organisations - the Club of Rome, Sitra, Medwaves, and PS Lifestyles project - launched their new report "A Climate for Sufficiency: 1.5-Degree Lifestyles" on 7 October 2025.

The remaining carbon budget is now so limited that, at current burn rates, the planet will cross the critical 1.5°C warming limit within the next five years. But what does approaching or crossing the 1.5°C threshold mean for our consumption and ways of living?

1.5°C is not a random number arbitrarily pulled out of thin air. The 1.5-Degrees Lifestyles report series grounds climate change and its impacts on people's lifestyles and consumption, and helps governments, civil society and businesses understand what decisions would shape future ways of living in a prosperous direction.

As climate change has progressed so has growing inequality in society, youth anxiety about future prospects, and general decline in wellbeing. Whereas dominant "solutions" towards climate change have focused on technology and economic interventions, climate change is both driven and impacted by consumption and lifestyles. Through consumption and lifestyles, climate solutions can ensure legitimacy, buy-in and contribution from citizens towards radical changes needed as we cross ecological thresholds.

At this threshold, how much can we afford to use the remaining carbon budget in a manner that is fair, to support human flourishing while achieving climate stability. This new report "A Climate for Sufficiency: 1.5-Degree Lifestyles" demonstrates that a sufficiency approach is essential, especially as we appear on course to transgress the 1.5°C environmental ceiling while a large share of humanity remains below the floor of essential consumption.

This report demonstrates that the challenge of 1.5°C is inseparable from the challenge of lifestyles. Current levels of consumption are driving ecological overshoot while leaving billions without the means for a decent life. The concept of the fair consumption space highlights a dual imperative: cut overconsumption while raising under-consumption to sufficiency levels.

The analysis shows that lifestyle carbon footprints must decline by 80–90% in high-income countries, and substantially in all others, if global warming is to be limited in line with the Paris Agreement goals. Sufficiency living offers a pathway to achieve this, combining well-being with ecological responsibility. While the remaining carbon budget is rapidly shrinking, it is still possible to reduce overshoot and avoid the most dangerous consequences.

Solutions are available – what is needed is courage and leadership to act. Reductions in food, transport, and housing emissions can each save more than 1 tonne of CO₂e per person annually, while also delivering co-benefits for health, affordability and quality of life. Progressive taxation and wealth caps, alongside global governance mechanisms, are essential to ensure fairness and enable systemic transformation. Individuals and households also play a role by refusing harmful consumption, supporting sustainable alternatives and spreading sufficiency practices.

New and bold recommendations in this report show that there is yet room to avert worse outcomes, granted we make some transformational, and yet possible, shifts today.

Arthur Dahl adds: the Hot or Cool Institute is led my old friend and former student Lewis Akenji, now a member of the Club of Rome, and it combines scientific and ethical approaches with an emphasis on social justice which is often lacking in purely scientific approaches to climate change action. I can highly recommend this report.

Download the report at https://hotorcool.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/A_Climate_for_Sufficie…