Project Drawdown presents the Drawdown Roadmap: The Five Parts of the Drawdown Roadmap | Unit 3

[Music] thank you welcome to unit 3. in this video we're going to talk about the drawdown road map in its five component parts these parts are all built on the science from the last unit but now show how we can take the most effective climate action based on good science so let's begin the Trident roadmap begins first with looking at how we can take action on climate change across multiple sectors weaving in multiple Solutions but doing so in the right amounts in the right areas now as we learned in the last unit the biggest thing we can do to stop climate change and by far the most effective is to cut emissions directly there's nothing we can do that's more important to climate change than stopping emissions from the beginning so a big part of the drawdown roadmap is to start cutting emissions directly and we recommend something like 87 percent of the work should be right here and it should be done in these six areas electricity food and Agriculture and land use industry transportation buildings and other stuff and in the drawdown Solutions Library we already have dozens of solutions that can improve the efficiency of things in these sectors but also decarbonize them so they don't emit greenhouse gases so we'll get back to that but that's a lot of the work we need to do roughly 87 percent we can also though cut emissions kind of indirectly by working on human welfare first these are what we might call like social interventions things that help people first but then later help the planet let me give you two examples one is helping indigenous communities around the world especially in the tropics protect their land and keep clear land tenure land ownership because of indigenous communities can keep land tenure and protect their lands it'll keep them from being deforested and that's good for people first of all but then that lowers deforestation rates around the world too and that helps climate so this is a great strategy for first helping people and then helping climate second another of course is helping women and girls have more Equitable access to education and health care when we do that of course it helps people first in issues of equity and justice but later it bends the curves economically and demographically that also lower emissions around the world later on so again by helping people first sometimes we help the planet second and we should accommodate that as well so in our portfolio here we add about six percent of emissions cuts through these people first kinds of solutions that come later to help the planet second and then we have carbon removal using both nature like trees and soils and oceans as well as machines to take carbon out of the atmosphere that's going to round out the last six percent or so of this kind of portfolio of activities we need to do but now we can double click and go down into more detail and see how we can look at the whole portfolio we can see how much we should do in electricity and food and agriculture industry and so on this if you will is a portfolio of action that's necessary to stop climate change and each box is scaled to about the right amount to do the job most effectively this is what I like to call Earth's portfolio it's kind of a Target portfolio based on the data and the science of what would be the most effective kind of climate action and we can use that to guide the actions we take next that is we know what to do and now we know what the mix of it should look like altogether to get the best possible portfolio and within this portfolio we can take a look at what are the most viable things we can do in each category for example in electricity what are the best things to do here well project rundown's already done the work for you we have a Solutions library that shows all of these circles which are individual solutions that we should do in about these amounts the bigger the circle the bigger the solution could be according to our analysis so here we have solutions that enhance the efficiency via and energy use around the world lowering the demand for electricity as well as shifting production of electricity to low carbon sources that don't emit greenhouse gases we can also look at Solutions in agriculture and land use like cutting food waste shifting diets protecting ecosystems and farming better on the land we use so this is also a suite of solutions right here in the food space or maybe over here in transportation we're reducing the need for transportation enhancing the efficiency of our transportation systems and then electrifying Vehicles like electric cars trains and so on so they don't use fossil fuels at all so this shows again how that portfolio could break down into how we use Solutions and in what amounts to get the best possible mix we can also though look for solutions that are most cost effective because you know these are going to take a little bit of money up front and we should do the things that are easiest first so let's look again at this portfolio and ask what are the cheapest Solutions well we did that analysis as well we built what's called a cost curve where we stacked solutions from left to right from the cheapest ones on the far left to the most expensive on the far right and that's what these Solutions look like and these are the initial cost this is what it costs up front on day one and some solutions are either free or make money immediately While others take a little bit of money up front but if we look at the lifetime cost and compare that to the world we would have had if we still burned fossil fuels and did all these things to cause climate change we see that climate Solutions are often a bargain and compared to the world we would have had climate Solutions are in fact free or make money for about 80 percent of the cases here that is 80 percent of the solutions make money for us around the world and only 20 percent would need some kind of subsidy overall though for every dollar we invest we'll probably make back about five dollars from climate Solutions and that's before we even count the damages climate change would have caused in the first place so this is the biggest kind of business boom in history just waiting for us is to take climate Solutions seriously and find the opportunities to build a whole new economy that's far more efficient but let's start with the cheap things first and use that to propel economic activity across the Spectrum now how does this kind of Target portfolio based on science compare to what we're actually doing well in a word not so well here again is the target portfolio based on the science this is what we should be doing now here's what we're actually doing here are some data showing what we think is the amount of money going into climate philanthropy there's like donations from individuals or big foundations and so on to do good climate work all together that's around 8 billion dollars a year right now and a fraction of that is going into climate Solutions and when we look at the data from climate Works a non-profit that's analyzed this it seems that the money going into climate Solutions looks something like this bar where it's doing a good job in electricity and in carbon removal and transportation but it's a little light in industry it's not doing enough in the kind of other emissions sector and it's not clear whether social interventions that lead to cutting emissions are really truly represented or not so we have to do a better job of understanding where philanthropic dollars are going compared to what the science suggests it's pretty good but it could be better and then here's an estimate of where Venture Capital where private investors who want to start new technologies and new companies where they're putting their money wow a lot of that seems to be going into Transportation most of that into electric cars well maybe that's what Silicon Valley can understand right now is a good business model and that makes sense but in the long term we need to put money into other areas as well to make sure we're getting enough in all of the right boxes and finally we can look at Government funding this is an example of the inflation reduction Act passed in 2022 by the U.S government this is putting money mainly into the electricity sector in the United States and that was part of the goal of that particular Bill a little bit in agriculture summon industry some in transportation but it's a little bit out of whack compared to what you might do ideally for a science-based portfolio so maybe future bills will have to address kind of the shortcomings of other things but first it's going to get the electricity right and later on hopefully do other things but the idea here is that we need to align the capital the money if you will that we're spending on climate Solutions with the carbon if we don't pay attention to the science how are we going to direct resources to the best possible place well the drawdown roadmap shows you how and how to put your money to work in the most effective ways well beyond directing climate action across sectors we now have to think about how to direct climate action over time and that's the second part of the road map in the second part of the roadmap we look at time now time is probably the most important variable when it comes to tackling climate change because right now we have to kind of bend the curve on emissions immediately and do steep Cuts in the next decade or two just to have a chance of stopping climate change within the Paris Accords agreement and then as we continue to cut emissions and grow carbon removal by mid-century we can get to Net Zero sometime by the middle of the 21st century this will take what we call kind of waves of climate action waves of climate action all start now but they go out into the future in different ways so maybe Crest in different times into different forms into the future so one of the first things we have to think about is the wave of climate action I call emergency brakes these are climate solutions that help us bend the curve on emissions immediately there are solutions we can adopt now but also have a fast response in the atmosphere so these are the things we have to do today to kind of Slam the brakes bend the curve on greenhouse gas emissions for example stopping deforestation immediately preventing trees from being burned everywhere in the world as fast as we can would have an immediate impact on climate change or cutting methane leaks because methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas and warns the planet so much in the early days that's another kind of emergency brake solution as is limiting what we call Black carbon emissions from kind of dirty cook stoves or incomplete combustion or dirty diesel engines black carbon or soot also warms the atmosphere and does so very quickly kind of like methane so all of these kinds of things but also reducing energy waste and food waste these are all emergency brake solutions that can have a disproportionately fast impact on the atmosphere the next wave of climate actions I might call the kind of infrastructure wave or building new low-carbon systems this is absolutely crucial too and begins today but will take a little longer to unfold because it requires us to build whole new systems for electricity for buildings Transportation industry and even our farms and agriculture basically we've got a remodel like everything in the world and it's going to take years and billions and billions of dollars so let's start now but this will take a bit of time and will unfold like that Blue Wave out into the future decades along the same time we have to make investments in Social interventions that help people now and continue to pay off for climate into the future like investing in indigenous communities helping women and girls around the world get more equity and their systems in health care and education these put people first and continue to pay dividends into the future for people and the planet we also can look at nature-based Solutions things that remove carbon out of the atmosphere using trees using soils and Farms maybe even using the oceans but it recognizes that trees and soils and ecosystems everywhere take time to build up carbon even decades so we start them now but they start to affect the atmosphere more and more in the next two to three decades then lastly we look at the most unpredictable wave of climate Solutions new technologies it's really hard to predict which technologies will succeed and which ones won't well it turns out we often have to bet on hundreds of Technologies just to get two or three to work out really well so that's what we need to do is keep investing today in new Innovations new research and development so we have the bets placed to find out which technologies will help us in the future this will require continued investment every year from now until mid-century hoping that some of them will really pay off and provide Solutions maybe in the out decades to address the last parts of climate change but using these ways together making sure we hit the emergency brakes and build infrastructure build out nature-based Solutions and invest in Social interventions while we're also investing in Innovation and r d are critical to making sure we have a complete portfolio of climate solutions that roll out over time effectively into the future so beyond working on sectors of climate Solutions and the time skills to climate Solutions we also have to be mindful of how they work across geographies how they work basically in places around the world as we do that though we should look for leverage points in the system that is kind of places that are more important than others to take our first actions for example here's the map showing the emissions of greenhouse gases from power plants in North America the red places emit a lot more greenhouse gas per megawatt hour of electricity produced than the yellow ones or the green ones so if you want to stop climate change we probably got to First focus on the red and orange power plants first because they're the dirtiest ones then we get to the yellow and the green ones it turns out about 70 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions come from about 30 percent of the power plants that's a good leverage point another one in the United States is often reported that about 30 percent of the leaking methane coming from natural gas Wells happens from only one percent of the wells well if that's true let's go find those one percent and bring a wrench because we can shut down those leaks and have a huge impact on methane emissions in the United States from focusing our attention on the worst polluters out there the same thing's true around deforestation it turns out about half of the world's deforestation happens in the Amazon basin here and in Indonesia on the other side of the planet here when we zoom into the Amazon basin we can further see that in the red areas or where the forests are the densest and contain the most carbon so these are areas you might want to preserve most of all from deforestation if we overlay these maps of carbon with maps of biodiversity but also maps of important indigenous Community rights we may build a guide to preserve forests that are the most important to people and the planet most of all though what I want to find are what I call the 80 20 rules for Geographic leverage like where can we find the biggest bang for the buck in working in different places around the world where do we get the biggest impact for the least investment and that might be in geographies like a particular place but sometimes it'll look like this in a supply chain in a place like you know where we're maybe importing stuff from one country into another and that's where we have to be very mindful of not only the physical geography but the economic geography of how we use things around the world the fourth part of the road map is moving beyond allocating our work on climate change from sectors to time to geographies and now it flips around to look for something different where we're actually looking here now to maximize the co-benefits of climate Solutions what does that mean well co-benefits means something like this where we want to find win-win solutions that address climate change but do something else for example maybe help nature in some other way than climate change like preserving the biodiversity in Integrity of forest ecosystems around the world that's important too can we find climate solutions that also help forest or what about the oceans are there climate solutions to protect Coastal or open ocean ecosystems and preserve Marine habitats and species sure there are lots of win-win solutions that help climate change and other environmental issues around the world and we should look for those we should also though perhaps most of all look for solutions that are win-win opportunities for climate and people especially people who've done the least to harm our planet and cause climate change but are sometimes seeing the worst impacts of the climate crisis so how do we find these win-win opportunities between people and climate change some work at project drawdown for example shown climate Solutions on the left focusing on low and middle income countries and where they could be cutting emissions in the future as they develop their economies but also now on the right showing how those solutions could also improve the economy and human welfare of people who live in the most abject poverty in the poorest of the poor countries of the world and so what I love about this part of the drawdown roadmap is it reminds us that climate change is one of the issues we should be looking at and as we address climate change maybe we could be smart about it and find other ways to address other issues so that we're not just avoiding climate change we're just building a better world where we have healthy ecosystems healthy people more equity and Justice and we averted the climate crisis all at the same time but finding these synergistic win-win co-benefits of climate action now the last part of the drawdown roadmap is reminding us there are sometimes barriers between where we are and where we need to go and we need to be mindful of all of them so here we are with solutions to climate change so we've talked about before the kind of Earth portfolio of Target Solutions down below and we want to grow those to scale we want them to get bigger and take charge and avert the climate crisis but there are sometimes barriers in the way now we know about some if you're in DC and maybe think about policy a lot you're going to be paying a lot of attention to this one the policy and Regulatory barriers well good we need to remove those well maybe you work in banking or at a foundation or something you're worried about the money it takes to use climate Solutions so you're thinking about investing philanthropy in the capital barriers that are here and the financing barriers yep we need that too or you might be thinking about how businesses could do more on climate change but it doesn't make sense in the current business environment we need to change business practice so we align business interests with the interest of the planet better yep that's needed too or maybe it's technology or maybe it's behavior and culture is getting in the way yes yes yes yes yes and yes all of these barriers are important the key here is to recognize they're all happening at the same time there's not just one and so if you might be focusing on policy barriers it might turn out the real issue is a cultural one or a technological barrier or maybe it's a business model and so by looking at these together we can see how these barriers interact and how we need to address all of them not just one so it's just a reminder to kind of remove our blinders and see the whole picture because that's where the game is being played so by putting together all these five parts of the drawdown roadmap we can see a wave forward first of all we see how we should best allocate our money our effort our resources to stopping the climate crisis the drawdown roadmap shows us very precisely how we should be allocating our work across sectors and solutions so we get the right mix of the total effort to do the job correctly it also shows us what we need to do across time that we use emergency brakes to bend the curve on emissions now while other Solutions like infrastructure nature and social interventions play out into the future and we continue to investing new technologies that could help either Wild Card the change Solutions out into the mid-century that's how we allocate the work out over time and we need to do that right too we also show in the drawdown roadmap how to use geography and finding those kind of 80 20 rules where some action in pivotal locations hot spots around the world if you will will have the biggest bang for the buck but also the roadmap tells us we should always be looking for co-benefits of climate action for other aspects of nature but most of all for people and finally the roadmap reminds us we have to be mindful of multiple barriers not just one not just policy not just technology but all of these barriers and we need to look at them in a very comprehensive way so taken together the drawdown roadmap it starts with the science of this planet and gives a five-point plan of how to take the most effective climate action and this can guide the work of businesses and governments and communities investors and philanthropists around the world and in the next unit we're going to show you how each of these communities can take the most effective climate action based on our drawdown roadmap

2023-05-02 22:02

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