Ageing society in developed countries challenges carbon mitigation

Populations in developed countries are ageing. However, the impact of senior citizens’ consumption on global carbon mitigation is poorly understood. Here we find that senior citizens have played a leading role in driving up GHG emissions in the past decade and are on the way to becoming the largest contributor. Considering the greenhouse gas footprint of household consumption across age groups in 32 developed countries, the senior contribution to national total consumption-based emissions increased from 25.2% to 32.7% between 2005 and 2015. Seniors in the United States and Australia have the highest per capita footprint, twice the Western average. The trend is mainly due to changes in expenditure patterns of seniors. The increasing carbon footprint of senior citizens will probably drive domestic production yet have limited effects on international carbon leakage. The demographic change poses more challenges in local mitigation and calls for deeper public mitigation efforts. A large proportion of the population in developed countries will be of senior age in the years ahead. The carbon emissions of this group comprised an increasing share of the total emissions in developed countries in the past decade, with high expenditure on carbon-intensive products, and this trend will continue in the future.