Corrigendum: Comment on ‘The climate mitigation gap: education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions’ (2018 Environ. Res. Lett. 13 048001)

Abstract

Wynes and Nicholas (2017) argue that the most effective action to reduce individual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is to have one fewer child. We raise methodological concerns about the way in which the authors attribute responsibility for emissions: they rely on multiple counting when calculating the emissions of future generations, and they exclude scenarios in which global emission trajectories become net-zero or negative. This may distort recommendations from policy makers and educators who rely on their study. We propose an alternative way of attributing responsibility that avoids multiple counting. Investigating the implications of having children under this proposal with regards to the full range of different scenarios, including likelihood analyses, calls for further studies.

Keywords

• climate change mitigation
• reproductive choices
• individual responsibility
• double counting
• attribution