IEA Report: LiFE lessons from India

In February 2023, the International Energy Agency released a Report entitled "LiFE lessons from India: The benefits of advancing the Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) initiative through the G20."

In November 2021 at the Climate Change Conference COP26, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the launch of the Lifestyles for Environment (LiFE) initiative, which aims to promote more environmentally responsible consumption and behaviour worldwide. In today’s context of the global energy crisis and the continued challenge of climate change, LiFE is an important opportunity to accelerate clean energy transitions.

This Report looks at how India has integrated measures aligned with LiFE into its energy transition strategy, outlines the role of behavioural change and consumer choices in clean energy transitions, and provides a quantification of the emissions reduction potential of LiFE at the world level. It concludes with some reflections of the implications of LiFE for the G20.

The key findings of the Report were:

• The Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) initiative aims to encourage the adoption of sustainable lifestyles in India and internationally to tackle the challenges of environmental degradation and climate change.
• India has integrated several policies in its energy transition strategy that are aligned with LiFE.
• India’s economy is already 10% more energy efficient than both the global and G20 average. India took less time to go from half to full electricity access than other major economies.
• Already the third largest national market globally for renewables, India has recently seen the growth of consumer-centric solutions like distributed solar PV take off, with rooftop solar growing 30-fold in less than a decade. Supportive policies and awareness campaigns in India have also driven electric passenger vehicles to a market share of almost 5% in 2022 – with sales tripling from 2021.
• India’s example shows the importance of behavioural change and consumption choices in driving energy transitions. The IEA has analysed the impact of measures like those proposed by the LiFE initiative, such as buying an EV or taking public transport, as part of comprehensive energy transition strategies.
• According to the IEA’s modelling, the adoption worldwide of the kinds of actions and measures targeted by LiFE – including behavioural changes and sustainable consumer choices – would reduce annual global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by more than 2 billion tonnes (Gt) in 2030. This is about one-fifth of the emissions reductions needed by 2030 to put the world on a pathway to net zero emissions.
• IEA estimates that around 60% of the emissions saving by LiFE measures could be directly influenced or mandated by governments. How individuals behave and choose to consume is shaped by the norms, policies, incentives and infrastructure around them. Thus, although the measures envisaged in LiFE are carried out by individuals, there is a clear role for governments to simultaneously provide a supportive policy framework.
• LiFE measures would also save consumers globally around USD 440 billion in 2030, according to the IEA’s modelling, equivalent to around 5% of all spending on fuels across the global economy that year.
• LiFE measures also help lower inequalities in energy consumption and emissions between countries. The reductions in per capita CO2 emissions in advanced economies by 2030 (relative to a ‘business-as-usual’ trajectory) are three- to four-times greater than in emerging market and developing economies.
• India’s first G20 Presidency could strengthen the LiFE initiative by anchoring it in the G20’s current framing of energy transitions and initiating processes to gather experience and best practices of policies and programmes that G20 members are already conducting.

WMO Report: Global Sea-Level Rise and Implications

In February 2023, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released a report “Global Sea-Level Rise & Implications: Key facts and figures”.

The Key Messages of the Report were:

• Sea-level rise threatens several low-lying small islands and high-population coastal cities. It is a major threat for countries like Netherlands, Bangladesh, India and China, some of which comprise large coastal populations.
• Several big cities on all continents are threatened, such as Shanghai, Dhaka, Bangkok, Jakarta, Mumbai, Maputo, Lagos, London, Copenhagen, New York, Los Angeles, and Buenos Aires. It is a major economic, social and humanitarian challenge.
• Sea-level rise threatens coastal farmlands and water reserves and resilience of infrastructures as well as human lives and livelihoods. The impacts of average sea-level rise are boosted by storm surges and tidal variations, as was the situation during the landfall of hurricane Sandy in New York and Cyclone Idai in Mozambique.
• According to future estimates based on climate models and ocean-atmosphere physics, the speed of the melting of the largest global ice mass Antarctica is uncertain. There is a risk of a much higher sea-level rise due to potential intrusion of sea water under the Antarctic glaciers.
• Global mean sea-level has risen faster since 1900 than over any preceding century in at least the last 3000 years. The global ocean has warmed faster over the past century than since the end of the last deglacial transition (around 11,000 years ago). 
• Global mean sea-level increased by 0.20m between 1901 and 2018. Human influence was very likely the main driver of this increase since at least 1971. 
• Heating of the climate system has caused global mean sea-level rise through ice loss on land, melting of glaciers and ice sheets and thermal expansion from ocean warming. Thermal expansion explained 50% of sea level rise during 1971–2018, while ice loss from glaciers contributed 22%, ice sheets 20% and changes in land-water storage 8%. The rate of ice-sheet loss increased by a factor of four between 1992–1999 and 2010–2019. Together, ice-sheet and glacier mass loss were the dominant contributors to global mean sea level rise during 2006–2018. 
• It is virtually certain that global mean sea-level will continue to rise over the 21st century. Over the next 2000 years, global mean sea-level will rise by about 2 to 3 m if warming is limited to 1.5°C, 2 to 6 m if limited to 2°C and 19 to 22 m with 5°C of warming, and it will continue to rise over subsequent millennia. 
• The likelihood and impacts of abrupt and/or irreversible changes increase with further global warming. At sustained warming levels between 2-3 C, the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets will be almost completely and irreversibly lost over multiple millennia causing potentially multi-meter sea-level rise. The mass loss is higher with higher warming rates. In case of very high greenhouse gas emissions (total failure of mitigation) there is a risk of sea-level rise by of 2 m by 2100 and even 15 m by 2300. 
• Continued sea-level rise will increase risks to food security in vulnerable regions between 1.5 C and 2 C Global warming level. 
• Sea-level rise poses a distinctive and severe adaptation challenge as it implies dealing with slow onset changes and increased frequency and magnitude of extreme sea-level events which will escalate in the coming decades. 
• There are significant specific impacts and challenges to those populations faced with sea-level rise living in coastal urban areas in least developed and low-middle income countries.