Reducing demand for energy can have a significant effect on carbon emissions. There is huge scope for demand reduction: for example, the UK could cut its energy demand by more than half by 2050.28 The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that intensive efforts towards increased energy efficiency could cause global energy demand to fall by 8 per cent by 2050, even if the economy more than doubled in size and the population grew by 2 billion.29
Operation of buildings, which consumes 30 per cent of the energy generated globally,30 is ripe for innovation. For example, a large fraction of that energy is used for temperature control. Improved construction and design, combined with the use of technologies such as ground-source heat pumps, can virtually eliminate this need.
There is also great scope to reduce energy demand through greater use of public transport and improvements to industrial processes.31 New designs of cars and skyscrapers are reducing the amount of steel and concrete needed, for instance. Improvements to recycling systems, and the gradual transition to a circular economy, also reduce the need for manufacture of new materials.
