Climate Drawdown is an expression in the context of the fight against climate change (Wikipedia). The moment of drawdown is the point in time at which the CO2’s and its equivalents‘ (furthermore, the greenhouse gases) concentrations in the atmosphere begins to decline as a result of suitable countermeasures.
Following on from this, Project Drawdown is the name a non-profit organization whose results are outlined in part below.. Among others, in it’s 2017’th book publication with the New York Times it evaluated the potentials of different action to combat the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Or in Project Drawdown’s own words:
Our mission is to help the world reach “drawdown”—the point in the future when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline, thereby stopping catastrophic climate change—as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.
Jonathan Foley, Executive Director Project Drawdown
The goal of Project Drawdown is to show scenarios how a set of measures can reach the point of drawdown. In the first step, suitable measures are identified, their greenhouse gas saving potential is modeled depending on parameters, among others the temporal course of investments made in them, and then, in the second step, these individual measures are combined and mentioned parameters are determined in such a way that the climatic change of the planet corresponds to selected limits. In this way, it is shown how measures would have to be combined in order to limit global warming.
Encouraging result (provided that the necessary measures are taken)
The combinations of financial expenditures per measure are chosen in such a way that one of two scenarios is achieved:
- Scenario 1: + 2 °C temperature rise until 2100.
- Scenario 2: + 1.5 °C temperature rise until 2100.
Project Drawdown is optimistic that humanity could achieve these szenarios by implementing measures because the assessed measures are on one hand
1) currently available,
2) growing in scale,
3) financially viable,
4) able to have a net positive impact, and
5) quantifiable under different scenarios.
Project Drawdown’s web site
And on the other hand the measures appear affordable for the societies of this planet. These costs are lower than the costs of non-mitigated climate change – so financing them is the cheaper option in balance sheet terms.
A comprehensive look at each measure compiled by Project Drawdown can be found here.
Action and our willingness to spent money are necessary to avoid an undesired/catastrophic outcome by poluting the atmosphere. However, taking these can not only avert dire consequences, but also improve living standards. And putting the focus on the desirable increase of all our quality of life, while we preserve our livelihood by fighting climate change (so rather to pay attention to the positive effects for us humans by the measures taken), is also propagated by sociologist and futurologist Harald Welzer:
But the question is: How do I motivate people to change things? In this book, I’m also looking for other stories, i.e., also for points of contact where the departure for a better world, to put it so pathetically, is now described as an attractive project.
Interview of Welzer by Deutschlandfunk (translated by Google)
The extensive work of Project Drawdown is to demonstrate that climate catastrophe can be averted. It is meant to be less of a list of actions for decision makers to sort by savings potential and select a set of individual actions from (see also video, which is the fifth in the series below). Only by implementing all measures will scenario 1 or scenario 2 be achieved. In case of deviation from the proposals, the models have to be re-evaluated and the effort per measure has to be recalculated.
Entire video series by Project Drawdown
This is the first of six informative and professional videos produced by Project Drawdown:
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