Socio-economic conditions for satisfying human needs at low energy use: an international analysis of provisioning factors

Panel: 1. Energy consumption and wellbeing

Authors:
Jefim Vogel, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Julia K. Steinberger, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Daniel W. O'Neill, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
William F. Lamb, Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, Germany
Jaya Krishnakumar, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Abstract

Meeting human needs at low levels of energy use is fundamental for avoiding catastrophic climate change and securing the well-being of all people. In the current political-economic regime, no country does so.

We assess which socio-economic conditions might enable societies to satisfy human needs at sustainable levels of energy use, to reconcile human well-being with climate mitigation. Applying a novel analytical framework and a novel regression-based moderation approach to data from 106 countries, we analyse how the relationship between energy use and six dimensions of human need satisfaction varies with a wide range of socio-economic factors relevant to the provisioning of goods and services (provisioning factors).

We find that higher achievements in provisioning factors such as income equality, public service quality, democracy and electricity access are associated with greater need satisfaction and lower energy requirements of need satisfaction. Conversely, higher levels of economic growth and extractivism are associated with lower need satisfaction and greater energy dependence. Our results suggest that countries with highly beneficial configurations of key provisioning factors could likely reach sufficient need satisfaction at low energy use.

Improvements in provisioning factors may thus be crucial for ending deprivation in ‘poor’ countries without exacerbating climate and ecological crises, and for tackling the ecological overshoot of ‘rich’ countries without compromising sufficient need satisfaction. However, as key pillars of the suggested changes in provisioning run contrary to the dominant political-economic regime, a broader political-economic transformation may be required to provide sufficient need satisfaction for all within sustainable levels of energy use.

Our findings have important implications for energy sufficiency, climate mitigation, poverty eradication, development discourses, and efforts towards Sustainable Development Goals.

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