According to the Paris Agreement, global warming is to be limited to well below 2 degrees. The largely prevailing emission reduction approach has been to improve ecological efficiency in production. Despite remarkable improvements, total emissions have not decreased but resulted in a multitude of rebound effects. Ecological sufficiency has been brought up as a necessary complementary approach to reach the climate targets. This article clarifies the role of ecological sufficiency in consumption-based climate policy and discusses it in relation Gough’s stages of decarbonisation: 1) ramping up eco-efficiency; 2) an intermediate stage of recomposing consumption; and 3) reducing consumption. A theoretical conceptualisation of the second stage, considered as a type of sufficiency, is described. Following previous studies, recomposing consumption entails systematically steering consumption away from identified carbon hotspots towards low-carbon options. The article identifies a number of policy measures to recompose consumption.peerReviewe
