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Home » Here’s How We (Mostly) Solve Climate Change By 2050 (Part 1)



Sadly, if we were forecasting likely outcomes based on progress to date, the most likely future course of our climate action is a continuation of the long history of insufficient action in the face of ever-stronger scientific evidence of human-driven damage and impending disaster.

We can do better, and the vision and strategy for doing much better is the focus of this series. I'm following the advice of Alan Kay, who observed: “the best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Rather than accepting the most likely outcome, let's articulate the outcome we want—I call it a future history of climate—and collectively work towards that goal.

Quite simply, it would be crazy if we didn't significantly slow global warming and mitigate the worst effects of climate change by 2050. It would be especially so given the immense capabilities and tools that human creativity, science, and technology provide us to address the clear and present dangers we are facing.

I acknowledge the challenge is mind boggling. The U.S. federal government's recent, self-described “authoritative assessment of the science of climate change,” the Climate Science Special Report (CSSR), said that, globally, we must go from the roughly 51 billion tons of carbon emissions a year we're emitting today to effectively zero emissions by 2050.

To succeed, we must make fundamental changes in every aspect of our personal lives and how society operates. We must get to net-zero emissions by 2050 in all five types of human activities that contribute most of our carbon emissions: how we plug in, how we make things, how we grow things, how we get around, and how we keep warm and cool. (H/T Bill Gates for this crisp categorization.)
