To get back on track, we need new climate leadership and approaches

Meanwhile, federal policy leadership on climate change in the United States will likely stall as President Trump begins his second term. Trump and his allies have repeatedly denied the reality of climate change and routinely spread disinformation about it. Moreover, he has vehemently opposed recent federal investments in renewable energy, electric vehicles, and other climate solutions. Whatever federal policy progress was made during the Biden Administration may soon unravel.

It is tough to make significant strides with national policy actions if the national policy regime changes with every election, as has been the case in the United States. Moreover, federal policy measures can sometimes be too expensive, inefficient, and slow. And some important recent federal climate investments were mainly designed to placate special interests, not actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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Maybe it’s time to acknowledge that despite the heroic efforts by many, international diplomacy and national policy leadership in this age of extreme polarization and powerful special interests aren’t getting the job done. While both matter a great deal – and we cannot let our political representatives off the hook – we must engage other leaders to get climate action back on track.

We should exalt extraordinary climate leaders from our neighborhoods, cities, states, and provinces – including elected officials, civil servants, grassroots organizers, non-profit leaders, faith leaders, local entrepreneurs, and other change-makers. We should engage effective climate leaders in start-ups, businesses, investment firms, and philanthropic organizations – leaders leveraging the power of markets, technology, and private capital to accelerate climate solutions. Moreover, we should amplify thought leaders in media, public affairs, science, technology, the arts, and popular culture who are inspiring bold climate action across the globe.

It’s time we have a more expansive vision of climate leadership, one that’s not overreliant on international diplomacy and federal policymaking. Indeed, those of us working in climate know that the most effective leadership often comes from grassroots communities, local and state governments, business leaders, technology innovators, engineers, investors, and philanthropists – not elected officials and diplomats.

Christiana Figueres, perhaps the world’s most impactful climate diplomat, conceded this during last year's New York City Climate Week, declaring that geopolitics was no longer the leading driver of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, she noted that communities and the real economy – through technological innovation, enlightened business practice, community action, and investment – were now setting the direction for climate action. She noted that, in the past, the “signal” of climate action was driven by geopolitics, and distracting “noise” came from entrenched businesses. But, today, it is reversed. Many businesses (though certainly not all), communities, markets, philanthropists, and investors are leading with clear signals and actions, whereas geopolitics has become a confusing cauldron of distracting noise.

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Beyond elevating better and bolder climate leadership, we also need to develop new, more strategic approaches to address climate change.

We still spend too much money and time on inadequate solutions and often miss critical opportunities for more effective action. Fortunately, science shows us ways to dramatically improve climate action – making it far more strategic and achieving greater impact in less time, with less money, while offering numerous additional benefits to the world.

What are the keys to unlocking more effective climate strategies? They nearly all stem from science.

First, we need to recognize the importance of time in averting the climate crisis.

Time is the most critical variable in climate action because climate change is fundamentally a long-term, cumulative response of the atmosphere to our ongoing emissions. After all, the greenhouse gases that drive climate change today have been building up in the atmosphere for many decades. Similarly, attempts to stop climate change will require decades of cumulative action. (In mathematical terms, the integral of our actions over many years matters most, not a single year.)  That’s why deploying climate solutions now – with whatever tools we have – is absolutely critical, and waiting for future solutions to arrive is precisely the wrong thing to do.

In other words, we must respect the “time value of carbon,” where early action on climate builds a sizeable cumulative impact, paying off today, tomorrow, and every day thereafter. Waiting for fancy, high-tech “solutions” to climate change – like nuclear fusion, carbon capture, novel materials, and so on – is usually folly. Mostly, that’s because many of these technologies never arrive. (The joke in nuclear fusion is that it’s “twenty years away, and always will be.” This is as true today as in the 1950s when early fusion energy research began.) 

But even if these new technologies eventually do arrive, it’s still a mistake to wait for them because they cost time – the one thing we absolutely cannot afford. Every year we wait for a promised technology is a year we pour additional billions of tons of pollution into the atmosphere, raising greenhouse gas levels even more and locking in further warming.

That’s why at Project Drawdown, we say, “Now is better than new” and “Time is more powerful than tech” when it comes to climate action. 

When time is taken seriously, the science becomes exceedingly clear about where to focus our efforts, namely on what Project Drawdown calls "emergency brake" climate solutions.

“Emergency brake” climate solutions are disproportionately fast and provide significant climate impacts in the near term. For example, curbing methane emissions from agriculture, landfills, and oil and gas production has a dramatic, near-term impact on climate change. Curbing black carbon, tropospheric ozone, contrails, and other short-lived climate pollutants is also an emergency brake. Another fast-acting solution is stopping large pulses of carbon dioxide emissions, mainly from tropical deforestation.

Pulling these climate emergency brakes is an effective way to make up for some of the time we have lost from years of poor political leadership. Fortunately, new efforts to address methane emissions are emerging, along with an increased focus on stopping deforestation as a key climate solution. However, additional measures that prioritize practical emergency brake climate solutions – alongside efforts to de-emphasize high-tech distractions like direct air capture and nuclear fusion – will be necessary over the coming years.

We can also take more effective climate action by focusing on the most critical geographic locations for cutting emissions.

Depending on the source or sector, most greenhouse gas emissions — and the opportunities to dramatically cut them — are geographically concentrated in a few specific locations. For example, we can target the low-hanging fruits that are the most polluting coal power plants, refineries, abandoned wells, and industrial facilities. In addition, we can target the worst-performing buildings, the highest-emitting transportation networks, the worst-performing landfills, and other super-emitting sources. Similarly, we can focus on critical areas of tropical deforestation – one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions – including targeted regions within the Amazon, equatorial Africa, and Indonesia.

New data sources, especially from ClimateTRACE, can help us pinpoint these “hot spots” of climate action that disproportionately impact climate change. Moreover, later this year, Project Drawdown is launching the Drawdown Explorer, our groundbreaking new platform that will include geospatial guidance on where to best deploy climate solutions for maximum impact.

Finally, we should focus more attention on the incredible human “co-benefits” offered by many climate solutions.

While we typically measure the efficacy of climate solutions in terms of reduced emissions, they often provide other tangible benefits to the communities where they are implemented, including new jobs, lower energy prices, lower air pollution, improved health, and improved social equity. Some climate solutions also provide unexpected benefits to nature, food systems, natural resources, and human well-being, especially in low-income regions of the world. 

What if we focused much more attention on these co-benefits, emphasizing them alongside – or even more than – carbon? Would it help unlock additional resources, public support, and a sense of urgency? By showcasing the immediate, practical, and local benefits of climate solutions, perhaps we can overcome some of the resistance that has delayed action for too long. 

Where appropriate, we should take a “people first” approach to deploying climate solutions, prioritizing those with the most significant potential to create jobs, reduce energy costs, improve health, and enhance human well-being. This would accelerate climate action significantly while making the world an overall better place.

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As we move through the rest of this decade, we must dramatically shift our tactics to address climate change. The old models simply aren’t working. Relying on elected politicians and diplomats to save us is not working. And ignoring science-based approaches to more effective climate action has been costly.

We must shift our approach to climate leadership, embracing leaders from multiple levels, sectors, and backgrounds, unlocking untold opportunities for inspiration and progress. Moreover, embracing science-based strategies to accelerate climate action – focusing on “emergency brake,” “hot spot,” and “people first” solutions – can help compensate for lost time and give us the best chance to address climate change.

Maintaining the status quo will only lead to more devastation. It's time to start down a new path toward our healthier, prosperous future.

Jonathan Foley, PhD, is a climate scientist and the Executive Director of Project Drawdown, the world’s leading resource for climate solutions. These views are his own.

This work was published under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. You are welcome to republish it following the license terms.