Socio-economic conditions for satisfying human needs at low energy use: an international analysis of social provisioning

Abstract Meeting human needs at sustainable levels of energy use is fundamental for avoiding catastrophic climate change and securing the well-being of all people. In the current political-economic regime, no country does so. Here, we assess which socio-economic conditions might enable societies to satisfy human needs at low energy use, to reconcile human well-being with climate mitigation. Using a novel analytical framework alongside a novel multivariate regression-based moderation approach and data for 106 countries, we analyse how the relationship between energy use and six dimensions of human need satisfaction varies with a wide range of socio-economic factors relevant to the provisioning of goods and services ('provisioning factors'). We find that higher achievements in factors such as income equality, democratic quality, electricity access, and public service quality are linked to greater need satisfaction and lower energy requirements (‘beneficial provisioning factors’). Conversely, higher levels of economic growth and extractivism are associated with lower need satisfaction and greater energy dependence (‘detrimental provisioning factors’). Our results suggest that improving beneficial provisioning factors and abandoning detrimental ones could enable countries to provide sufficient need satisfaction within sustainable levels of energy use. However, as key pillars of the required changes in provisioning run contrary to the dominant political-economic regime, a broader political-economic transformation may be required to prioritise, and organise provisioning for, the satisfaction of human needs at low energy use.