How to reduce your carbon footprint by 80% | Matthew Tolley | TEDxTelford

Governments worldwide have committed to a target of reducing Carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. European countries are aiming to go further and achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
But the actions governments are collectively taking don’t look like they will be enough to meet their own targets. Matthew Tolley’s talk shows how you can, with your individual choices, have the power to reduce your carbon footprint from around 12 tonnes per year to 2.5 tonnes per year, with

[breee]

Using LEDs.
Most energy efficient appliance.
Switch to 100% renewable energy supply.

Installed smart controls for heat/AC.
Replaced old heat system with more efficient one.
Insulated home.

Flying less and using a train instead.
Instead of cycling, used bike, train, bus, walking.
Switched to electric car.

Switched to minimalism.
Purchased more things second hand and reused more.
More recycling.

Plant based diet.
(Another suggestion from the comments) Purchase locally instead of imported goods.

[danielgranjaconejeros]

Hi Matthew,

Loved your talk! I am happy to see these small changes are actually making a greater impact than I thought, your talk has motivated me to keep on the same direction. Is there more material or sources you would recommend I can read to get further understanding of the individual impact in carbon emissions?

[miteshrathod]

That's enough to change my mind..
Thank you

[yvest]

You definitely need animal protein. It does not mean that you need very carbon-intensive beef meat every day. It can be eggs and poultry which are 10 times less carbon-intensive than beef. There you are: by just substituting eggs and poultry for beef, you reduce your food-related carbon footprint by about 90%.

[C-E]

This is the most important video in entire youtube.

[MrMrannoying]

I was expecting to leave halfway through the video, but all of this was indeed very practical and reasonable! I personally am going to look at what type of lights I have and replace them with LEDs.

[someoneLikeAnje]

I usually dont comment under videos but this is simply great! Thank you for all the insights and great framing of the topic.

[marisabeltran]

So if you can't aford a car, ac, and vocations your already helping the planet ... 🙄

[kathbates]

The reason cheese is addictive is that cows milk contains casomorphin an opiate like substance that is there to urge the calf to suckle frequently. Instead it is made into dairy foods

[vipulsethi]

As most of the people won't agree for going completely vegan, we can atleast tell the large meat consuming countries to decrease their meat consumption by 1/2. The money that will be saved can be used initially to help meat farmers to find alternative professions as they will loose the work. Matthew toley, do you agree?

[Naturallycurious]

I'm ambivalent and even here I think there are a few ironies :that of the crops themselves being a carbon dioxide sink; that the Amazon being cleared correlates to huge animal-based diet demands.
The bigger issue is education and a halt on shipping buyers (by air, of course) across to world to acquire produce for local markets - educate people about the carbon cycle (and the water cycle) and not this drivel that one can simply pay to 'offset' usage and educate people about food production and seasonality - strawberries are *not* available 12 months of the year.
I'd love to see data on these elements

[aishaansari]

Hey thank you for the amazing speech ❤️ I delivered it in inter Collegiate competition and won 1st prize 🏆❤️

[IrishCarney]

"To seriously shift our carbon footprint we need to shift to a plant-based diet." That may be effective on an individual level which is the subject of the talk, but it's not the most important way overall. France gets over 70% of its electricity from nuclear power and has the lowest per capita carbon footprint of any large advanced country.

[GowthamV]

No the solution is not replacing GOOD WORKING appliances which increases their efficiency every year like Fridge and washing machine. Just INSTALL SOLAR For the same amount of money you would have to buy a new appliance. Only buy new appliances when OLD one is not working.

[NLX_n]

There are some part missing that actually prevents us from reducing our emissions by 80%.
1. The government builds roads, hospitals, schools, buildings etc. The government has a militiary. The government spends billions of dollars in the industry that produces carbon. We can't reduce that on our own.

2. It might sound easy to go by train or bus all the time. However if public transport is bad, you sometimes need 4 times as much time. That's something no one likes to do and most people won't do. So we need the government to improve public transport so that everybody can use it without these huge restrictions.
3. Electric vehicles are still expensive. Some people can't afford those. ( Some people can afford those but they prefer a SUV over a normal car. Most people will still buy the SUV because they don't want to change their live style for the climate.

4. You said that vegan products are the cheapest. Basically that's correct. However it's only correct if you really pay attention to your nutrition. For example it's really difficult to get proteins over vegan food. As soon as you buy "vegan" products that were produced to exchange the meat, these product get more and more expensive while often not providing the same nutrition levels as meat. So if you really want to eat vegan cheap, you need to put a of time into it. And as we know. Time is money. And most people are not willing to pay that time for the climate.

You have these problems in some other fields as well.

All these points clarify that politics and industry really need to shift their policies. Otherwise won't people are not willing or are not able to adapt the changes we need to reduce our carbon footprint. Saying that everyone can easily do it on his or her own is a myth and somehow frees companies from their responsibility to change things!

[Marko-pinc]

Thanks dude, Great talk. Educational and really nicely sayed. Mutch love and respect

[piyushuniyal]

Very practical and well researched talk!

[alok]

What about tropical fruits, coffee, chocolate and super foods imported into the Western countries from tropical regions to feed the western people ?

You missed the point that along with meat this is also a big contributer to their carbon footprint.

Solution would be for population to stick to what grows in their area.

[mamakaka]

Just eat less meat not necessary 0. Eggs and bacon in the morning, mcdonalds for lunch and then a big steak for dinner... That's too much. Just one time a day would really help reduce consumption without having to become vegan.

[tomodugan]

This is a good list of what needs to be done, but the framing that individual actions could be sufficient is incorrect. The speaker himself sites that Mr Smart needs certain changes from the government/collective in order to achieve his emissions reduction. Low carbon electricity production, public transportation, town composting are all changes that require infrastructure from the collective. A switch to plant based is the #1 thing anyone can do on their own to reduce emissions.