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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. We find that public service quality, income equality, democracy, and electricity access are associated with higher need satisfaction and lower energy requirements.
Conversely, extractivism and economic growth beyond moderate levels of affluence is associated with lower need satisfaction. Our results suggest that improving beneficial provisioning factors and abandoning detrimental ones could enable countries to provide sufficient need satisfaction at much lower, ecologically sustainable levels.