[throwaway894345]

Honestly my rule of thumb with respect to climate is that private individuals’ pollution pales in comparison to upstream industry. I expect the same is true here as well-residential efficiency is probably small potatoes compared to the efficiency opportunities in industry.

[danans]

Residential is the single largest sector of electricity consumption in the United States:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/560927/us-retail-electri...

Electricity production represents 25% of GHG emissions in the US:

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

Direct residential GHG emissions (i.e. from burning natural gas) are also significant.

In total, residential energy use of all kinds accounts for 20% of US GHG emissions:

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/32/19122

[throwaway894345]

I'm not sure what if anything you're refuting here, because this all seems to support my claim that the biggest opportunities likely lie in industry.

Specifically, your bottom line ("In total, residential energy use of all kinds accounts for 20% of US GHG emissions:") is still considerably less than upstream industry, logistics, etc and especially considering the misleading framing of "US GHG emissions" which don't capture the much larger share of emissions that are outsourced via trade (i.e., America buys a lot of shit from China, India, etc and those countries' industry is even less GHG-efficient than US industry). Note that I don't mean to imply that you intended to mislead.

Maybe we're just agreeing here, and you're throwing out extra context?

[danans]

> Maybe we're just agreeing here, and you're throwing out extra context?

We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Beyond residential, private consumer choices in general - and importantly the incentives that drive them - have massive effect on upstream industrial and commercial energy uses, far greater than the 20% "residential" piece of the pie.

60% of the "transportation" sector comes from light-duty vehicles [1], which is why electrification of passenger cars is so critical.

And by the same token, we absolutely should look into the GHG footprint of imported goods from overseas or domestically produced. Carbon taxes - phased in, and with rebates to lower income quantiles - are a simple way to handle that.

1. https://www.c2es.org/content/regulating-transportation-secto...