Powers of 10: Seeking 'sweet spots' for rapid climate and sustainability actions between individual and global scalesShow others and affiliations
2020 (English)In: Environmental Research Letters, E-ISSN 1748-9326, Vol. 15, no 9, article id 094011
Article in journal, Letter (Other academic) Published
Abstract [en]
Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and related sustainability initiatives will require halving of global greenhouse gas emissions each decade from now on through to 2050, when net zero emissions should be achieved. To reach such significant reductions requires a rapid and strategic scaling of existing and emerging technologies and practices, coupled with economic and social transformations and novel governance solutions. Here we present a new 'Powers of 10' (P10) logarithmic framework and demonstrate its potential as a practical tool for decision makers and change agents at multiple scales to inform and catalyze engagement and actions, complementing and adding nuance to existing frameworks. P10 assists in identifying the suitable cohorts and cohort ranges for rapidly deploying climate and sustainability actions between a single individual and the globally projected ~ 10 billion persons by 2050. Applying a robust dataset of climate solutions from Project Drawdown's Plausible scenario that could cumulatively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1051 gigatons (Gt) against a reference scenario (2190 Gt) between 2020 and 2050, we seek to identify a 'sweet spot' where these climate and sustainability actions are suitably scaled. We suggest that prioritizing the analyzed climate actions between community and urban scales, where global and local converge, can help catalyze and enhance individual, household and local practices, and support national and international policies and finances for rapid sustainability transformations.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2020. Vol. 15, no 9, article id 094011
Keywords [en]
agency, climate action, climate mitigation, paris agreement, scale, sustainability, Decision making, Greenhouse gases, Sustainable development, Change agents, Decision makers, Emerging technologies, Global scale, International policies, Multiple scale, Social transformation, Zero emission, Gas emissions, action plan, carbon emission, climate change, emission control, global change, power plant
National Category
Earth and Related Environmental Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-189031DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab9ed0Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85090419943OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-189031DiVA, id: diva2:1518246
2021-01-152021-01-152025-02-07Bibliographically approved