Drawdown summary

If you turn on the lights in your home, where does the electricity come from? Most likely, it was generated by burning fossil fuels. Nearly 80 percent of the world’s electricity comes from fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil, all of which contain massive amounts of carbon. 

But if we’re serious about reversing global warming, we need to radically change this. Luckily, energy is all around us, stored in the rays of the sun and the motions of wind and water. The technology to harvest these renewable energies is becoming increasingly efficient, making them competitive with fossil fuels.

What do Buddha, Confucius and Leonardo da Vinci have in common? They were all proponents of a plant-based diet. 

Their ancient wisdom is lost on current generations: the world is eating more meat than ever. And the meat industry accounts for 20 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, which come from both the animals themselves and the agriculture needed to feed them. 

Smog, traffic congestion and a lack of greenery can make cities seem like the antithesis to living at one with nature. But the density of urban centers could actually allow them to become frontline innovators of climate-friendly solutions for water, energy and lighting.

The first step to making a city more climate-friendly is making its buildings more energy-efficient. There are many ways to reduce energy use in buildings. Wall and ceiling insulation made from fiberglass or even old newspapers can prevent heat loss in winter and overheating in summer, reducing the need for heating and air conditioning. Greening roofs with plants keeps buildings cool while sequestering carbon. “Smart” electrochromic glass changes its color according to the time of the day, saving on heating and lighting. Not only do these technologies cut electricity costs, but their widespread adoption will have a net positive effect on the environment. For instance, if energy-friendly LED light bulbs became ubiquitous in buildings worldwide by 2050, we would save a total of 12.8 gigatons in carbon emissions.

Mobility is an important part of our sense of freedom. We want to be able to move around in the world, visit loved ones and travel to exotic places. Unfortunately, the cars, buses and planes we rely on to do so all use traditional combustion engines that burn fossil fuels – lots of them. The ships and trucks that transport our food and products aren’t much greener. To decrease CO2 emissions, these vehicles need to become more fuel-efficient. New designs, technology upgrades, better maintenance and monitoring can contribute to reducing their fuel use, thereby cutting emissions. 

Currently, planes account for 2.5% of global carbon emissions, a number that’s bound to grow as air travel becomes increasingly popular around the world. To counter this increase in flights, Boeing and NASA are already collaborating on an aircraft designed to be 50 percent more fuel-efficient than a regular plane. This new aircraft has its engine in the rear and finer wings, rendering it lighter and more aerodynamic. 

So far, we’ve mainly addressed the first part of the formula to solve climate change: cutting carbon emissions. But to reverse global warming, we also need to protect and restore the ecosystems that naturally take up carbon in the atmosphere and put it back in the soil where it belongs.

Forests, especially rainforests, are some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. Plants, insects, animals and trees live in close proximity, forming complex communities of mutual benefit. Only recently, scientists discovered that individual trees communicate with each other via a hidden network of fungi in the soil. Over this “wood wide web,” they share nutrients and vital information about insects, droughts and other dangers. Taken all together, forests store 300 billion tons of carbon, yet 15 billion trees are cut down each year. When forests are destroyed, soil health plummets, and the degraded land releases its carbon content into the air. More than 10 percent of annual carbon emissions are caused this way.

There’s a single household item that has contributed more to global warming than cows and planes combined, and you’re using it daily: your fridge. Most refrigerators, supermarket cases and air conditioners use cooling chemicals that are extremely harmful to the climate. In fact, a unit of the chemical used in fridges releases 9,000 times more heat into the atmosphere than a single CO2 molecule. 

The dominant chemical used for refrigeration nowadays is called hydrofluorocarbon, or HFC. And at an international conference in 2016, 170 countries agreed that HFCs are so adversely affecting our climate that they need to be phased out completely by 2024. However, since the danger of refrigerants is greatest at disposal, their removal from circulation will need to be carefully monitored. But if done correctly, phasing out HCFs and other harmful refrigerants by 2050 could reduce carbon emissions by 90 gigatons, making it the number one solution to climate change. Scientists estimate that this measure alone will reduce global warming by a full degree Fahrenheit. 

Devising policies, putting in place regulations and providing subsidies that cut carbon emissions and protect ecosystems are all jobs for governments, businesses and organizations. But reversing global warming equally relies on individuals changing their behavior. Public campaigns, peer-to-peer training and grassroots information sharing will be essential tools in effecting such change.

Farmers are an especially important audience for such education efforts, as sustainable farming stands to save tons of carbon emissions. NGOs are now teaching sustainable farming techniques around the world. For example, the System of Rice Intensification, or SRI, is a climate-friendly approach to improving the production of rice, a staple food across the globe. Its key components involve transplanting rice seedlings earlier, draining the fields mid-season instead of continuously flooding them, and reducing the use of synthetic fertilizers in favor of organic compost. 

By now we have gotten to know plenty of well-established technologies that, if combined and spread, can reverse climate change. In addition to these tried-and-tested solutions, start-ups and NGOs around the world constantly come up with new ideas to reduce emissions and sequester carbon. Let’s take a look at three of the technologies currently in development. 

While self-driving cars might not seem inherently climate-friendly, many of the companies developing them are pairing them with low-emission technologies such as electric motors, ride-sharing and smart traffic routing. These initiatives may ultimately reduce fuel and individual car use, thus also cutting carbon emissions.