Slowing climate change is possible—here’s how nations could make it happen

January 2024 marked the first year during which the globe’s surface temperatures rose 1.5°C above average. Although it’s unknown whether this trend will continue, it does mean that temperatures are nearing the limit agreed upon in 2015’s Paris Agreement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

With news like that, it’s easy to feel like it’s too late, that there’s nothing we can do to curb greenhouse gas emissions enough to make a difference. But a report from the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI), a partnership between Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and the University of Maryland, shows that the world’s goal to stay below a 1.5°C temperature rise is still within reach. The study was led out of the Center for Global Sustainability in the University of Maryland.

The report lays out a scenario in which major societal players come together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase electrification, and protect forests. The report specifically calls out six areas of society—power, transportation, buildings, industry, land use, and non-CO₂ greenhouse gases such as methane—in which they recommend various policies that could make a difference in cutting greenhouse gas emissions globally.

“These recommendations represent the biggest emissions reductions potential in the global economy,” said Michael Westphal, now Head of Science for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He was a research scientist at JGCRI when the report published. “Together, these recommendations make up the All-of-Society Climate Change Pathway.”

The team used the Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM) to determine how policies in these six sectors could help achieve the global temperature goal.

“GCAM is a powerful tool that brings together representations of the world’s energy, agriculture and land use, water, and climate systems along with interactions across them to examine how policies in these areas might reduce emissions in the future,” said Gokul Iyer, a co-author on the report and senior Earth scientist at JGCRI. GCAM is developed and maintained in JGCRI.

If the policies outlined below were enacted today, greenhouse gas emissions would fall 32% by 2030. Here’s how the big sectors of society would change under the All-of-Society 1.5°C Climate Pathway.

Power

Electricity runs the world—our homes, businesses, devices, and even some of our vehicles. To produce much of that electricity, we burn fossil fuels like coal and natural gas. Although renewable energy such as solar and wind power is increasing, research shows that deployment of renewable energy must increase faster to reach our temperature goals. In 2023, 60% of the total energy generated in the United States was from fossil fuels, 18% was from nuclear energy, and 21% was from renewable sources such as wind turbines and solar panels.

To increase the amount of renewable energy powering society, the researchers recommend that countries invest in power grid updates, set ambitious clean energy goals to encourage innovation, or set retirement dates for coal plants. With those actions, wind and solar—plus other renewable sources—would make up 62% of electricity generation globally by…