This project will explore how augmented reality (AR) systems can reduce the spatial and temporal distance between people’s choices and their environmental consequences, in order to reveal the impact of both individual habits and global policies. More concretely, we will design interactive visualizations that integrate concrete environmental consequences (e.g. waste accumulation, rare earth mining) directly into user's surroundings. This interdisciplinary research will be informed and validated by incentivized and controlled behavioral economics experiments based on game-theoretical models, and guided by real environmental scenarios

Transitions to “low-carbon” development paths (i.e., to development paths with limited greenhouse gases emissions) are unlikely to be achievable solely via technological solutions: behavior, notably consumption patterns, will also have to evolve. However, an assumption implicit in most GHG emissions scenarios is that as income per capita converge across countries, households consumption patterns will converge as well, leading to potentially very high demand for energy, very high demand for natural resources and very high emissions. ECOPA precisely aims at examining how flexible the link between income per capita and consumption patterns is; and at drawing implications of these findings for future emissions scenarios. To do so, ECOPA maps and compares consumption patterns, and their evolution, in France, an “old” industrialized economy, and Brazil, a rapidly emerging economy. In both countries, a combination of econometric analysis of consumption data, household surveys and in-depth studies of representative goods and services is used to (i) map consumption patterns across income groups, and (ii) explore the determinants of their changes over time. Strong emphasis is put on obtaining consistent monetary and physical flows. This is necessary to analyze the energy and emissions implications of consumption patterns, but this constitutes a significant theoretical and empirical stumbling block. Finally, on the basis of the retrospective analysis, scenarios of how household consumption patterns in the two countries might evolve are built and their implications for energy and GHG emissions are computed.

Due to expectations of more ambitious GHG mitigation goals to be agreed on internationally in the future, climate policy will have to target households. Households in high-income-countries influence some 50 % of GHG emissions. Thus, targeting them in climate policies implies including emissions embedded in private consumption which so far has largely been outside the scope of current climate policies. The EU roadmap for a competitive low carbon economy calls for reducing GHG emissions by 80-95% until 2050. Thus, we apply a long-term goal of reducing household GHG emissions in the range of 50 % by 2050 compared with 1990, in which we will develop possible pathways for households to contribute to reach this goal. The HOPE project will generate new knowledge in three areas (1) the drivers behind current household emission (2) households choices to achieve imposed GHG reduction targets (3) economic costs amp; benefits as well as health co-benefits of each choice. The four study countries offer different contexts in climate policy, GHG-emission profiles and energy supply. We study a representative urban household sample in each country. The study comprises three stages: (1) A household interview survey including the assessment of the current household footprint of direct and indirect GHG emissions. (2) An on-site simulation, in which household will be guided through a GHG reduction simulation of 60 GHG saving options. For each behavioral change, the resulting savings (GHG reduction), costs and health co-benefits will be shown. (3) A semi-structured qualitative follow-up interview addressing household views on potential barriers and motivation for the measures chosen in stage 2 will be applied to a carefully chosen subsample based on the results of stages 1 and 2. Engaging with policy-makers from the start we will develop possible innovations in current climate policy regimes at EU, national and local level of governance to support households in their consumption choices.

We are an international consortium formed by six leading research institutes in the field of green economy. Our GOAL is to develop robust evidence on green growth in both EU and Chinese cities and to draw lessons to facilitate a transition towards sustainable development in EU and Chinese cities. Our team has brought strong and multi-disciplinary expertise into this project from aspects of urban development, environmental economics, economy-energy-environmental modelling,carbon accounting and policy analysis for technology transfers. Green growth means shifting to a development model where environmental protection and economic growth complement each other, rather than being contradictory. Generating 85% of Europe's GDP, 80% of energy consumption and 75% of carbon emissions, cities have a central role to play in this process. European cities are striving for green growth. They are adapting local regulation and raising citizen awareness. Recently, the EU has launched the Europe 2020 strategy that sets out sustainable growth as one of its priorities, alongside smart and inclusive growth: 'making our production more resource efficient while boosting our competitiveness' . On the other hand, China will play a pivotal role in the fight against climate change given due to its immense size and need to develop. Shifting Chinese cities to a green growth path is a critical part of the fight. Chinese cities home 46% of the population and contribute 75% of the Chinese national economy and nearly 85% of CO2 emissions. The nexus between urban evolution and emission mitigation is the key in China's green growth. While the green-growth debate is becoming more prominent at the international level, understanding how to operationalise green-growth strategies is still lacking at more local levels. The key challenges remain: Challenge 1: What are the dynamics of emission trends in Chinese cities at different urbanisation and industrialisation stages? Energy and greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission inventories are usually built at national level. But no such international framework exists requiring measurements of city emissions or providing detailed methodological guidance for conducting an urban emissions inventory. We will construct city level emission inventories. Challenge 2: What factors are driving emission growth in cities? Quantification of emission driving forces has been extensively studies at the national level. Few studies have found at the city level. Understanding the key factors in driving the emission growth, one can target the problem more specific to reduce emissions in cities. Challenge 3: What are the sources of green growth in cities and how can we support green growth? Green growth can open up new sources of growth through increasing resource efficiencies and economic productivities, supporting technology innovations, creation of new market, boosting business confidence in green growth and enhance economic stability. Institutional arrangements and economic incentives are the key to sustain the sources of growth in cities. New institutional arrangements will need to be established to guide the development of green growth strategies and to overcome the institutional inertia and silos that exist around economic and environmental policy making. Challenge 4: How to use interventions to transform cities to green growth? Cities are the centre of transitioning towards green economy. Green growth is already underway in both European and Chinese cities. We identify available interventions for green growth and examine the effectiveness of those interventions.

Air conditioning (AC) has emerged in the 1950s United States as an effective way to cope with heat stress. It has since then massively spread across North America, Japan and urban China, but very little in the developing world. Despite providing important benefits, it generates greenhouse gas emissions by using electricity and leaking hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), thereby adding a dangerous positive feedback loop into the climate system. Moreover, it is suspected to have adverse effects on health (by decreasing physical activity) and diverting resources away from traditional heat-proof habitat. The global expansion of AC is expected to take a new, dramatic turn with the combination of global warming, income rise and urbanization. This confluence of factors is expected to be most critical in African countries, were AC ownership rates are currently below 1%. Despite the importance of the challenge, AC is virtually unstudied in African contexts. There is thus an urgent need to fill this gap and provide policy recommendations for sustainable cooling in Africa. The AFRICOOLING project is committed to seizing this timely research opportunity. To do so, it will take an integrated demand- supply-policy approach to cooling and explore blind spots in it in three inter-related work packages (WP). On the demand side, research into the adoption of cooling technologies has focused on temperature and income as the main determinants. A broader set of factors needs to be investigated, including health, behaviors, attitudes, new electricity pricing schemes, and, crucially, dynamic effects such as heat waves. To address this gap, WP1 will consist in conducting comprehensive household surveys (N=400 in each) in Mombasa and Mwingi in Kenya and Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire. The same households will be surveyed every year so as to build a 4-year dataset fit for capturing a broad range of effects. The team will benefit from field support from the University of Nairobi, Institut Polytechnique Houphouët-Boigny (INP-HB) and Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD). On the supply side, research has focused on long-term price and efficiency adjustments in AC retail in the United States. In an attempt to generate broader insights, the coordinator has started assembling a high-frequency database of cooling products in 13 African countries in June 2019. E-commerce data are collected for 13,000 cooling products (AC, fans, refrigerators) and a control group of other products (smartphone, rice, etc.) on a daily basis. In WP2, this work will be continued so as to provide 6 years of data by the end of the project. In addition, on-site visits will be conducted in Kenyan and Ivorian retail stores and at street corner merchants to complement the online data with offline ones. On the policy side, research has documented very few conventional policies such as energy efficiency labels for AC across Africa. Meanwhile, non-conventional policies such as import bans on second- hand appliances have been documented in Ghana. Yet more policies are supposed to be adopted under the international framework of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, imposing HFC phase-downs. In WP3, a more systematic analysis of African cooling policies will be conducted and complemented with interviews with stakeholders in the Kigali Amendment to identify the key factors of policy effectiveness at both the global and domestic levels. The results from the different WPs will be integrated into a final WP generating contrasted cooling pathways and making policy recommendations for promoting the more sustainable ones. The project will gather an interdisciplinary team of 11 highly qualified experts from the coordinator's close circle and beyond, and allow him to hire a PhD student and a three-year postdoc. Following the highest ethics standards, it will produce extensive, novel and highly valuable datasets that will be made broadly accessible.