Drawdown

How can humanity realistically reverse global warming rather than just slow it? In Drawdown, edited by Paul Hawken, a coalition of researchers answers by doing something unprecedented: mapping, modeling, and ranking one hundred existing solutions—technological, ecological, and social—that together could reach the point of “drawdown”: when atmospheric greenhouse gases peak and then decline year-to-year.

The book is both an inventory and a translation project. It translates an immense scientific and policy challenge into something concrete: gigatons of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO₂e) avoided or captured between 2020 and 2050. Drawdown’s core claim is simple yet revolutionary: we already have the means to reverse climate change using solutions that exist today. What’s missing is scale, alignment, and inclusion.

How Drawdown Works

Beginning in 2013, seventy research fellows from twenty-two countries compiled data from thousands of sources and validated each solution through three review stages and a 120-member advisory board. The result is a ranked list of interventions, modeled consistently over thirty years and expressed in the same unit—CO₂e.

You’ll notice that Drawdown’s approach blurs disciplinary lines. It places family planning alongside wind turbines, mangrove protection beside electric vehicles, rooftop solar next to regenerative agriculture. The logic is systems thinking: climate is not just an energy problem but a deployment problem spanning food, land, materials, transport, and human rights.

Ranking Climate Solutions

Each solution is ranked by the volume of greenhouse gases it could reduce or store between 2020 and 2050. Refrigerant management tops the list (89.7 gigatons potential), followed by onshore wind (84.6 Gt), reduced food waste (70.5 Gt), and a plant-rich diet (66.1 Gt). Other top players include tropical forest restoration, girls’ education, family planning, and silvopasture—showing how technology, ecology, and social change converge.

These numbers are conservative by design. Costs and adoption rates are kept plausible so that real-world progress can exceed expectations. The key message is not prediction but potential: a credible path to stop and reverse atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases.

Language and Framing Matter

Drawdown intentionally rejects alarmist or militarized metaphors. It avoids terms like “war on carbon” or “negative emissions,” preferring accessible language such as “carbon sequestration.” As Paul Hawken argues, how we talk about the climate shapes what people believe is possible. The book therefore bridges science with story, combining hard data with essays that connect climate work to ethics, justice, and beauty.

From Problem to Portfolio

Drawdown reframes climate not as an impossibly large crisis but as a manageable portfolio challenge. Like an investor balancing risk and return, society can strategically combine solutions across sectors—renewables, buildings, food, land use, materials, and social equity—to reach drawdown.

Collectively, these solutions are not only emissions reducers but value creators. When modeled economically, most yield trillions in net savings—wind power alone could save about $7.7 trillion globally by 2050. This flips the old assumption that climate action is costly. Instead, it is profitable, regenerative, and within reach.

A Broader Definition of Solution

Some of the most profound levers have little to do with machines at all. Educating girls and expanding voluntary family planning, for instance, each account for roughly 59.6 gigatons of potential reductions by slowing population growth, improving health, and strengthening resilience. Likewise, Indigenous stewardship and women’s land rights are modeled as key climate strategies, reflecting that equity and empowerment are not side benefits—they are core infrastructure for environmental stability.

The Meaning of Drawdown

In essence, “drawdown” marks a turning point in human history—the moment when we transition from adding to the problem to subtracting from it. Drawdown does not pretend humans can control nature; it calls for learning from nature, redesigning systems to mimic ecological regeneration. Whether through forests, soils, kelp, or solar arrays, the book envisions a future in which every sector contributes to a self-reinforcing cycle of restoration.

Key takeaway

Drawdown transforms climate from an abstract doom story into a design brief for civilization: identify what works, scale it up, measure results, and build community. The message is hopeful but grounded—human ingenuity, when aligned with natural systems, can reverse global warming.

Clean energy is the cornerstone of drawdown. The book shows that the transition to renewables is not only necessary but inevitable—driven as much by economics as by ethics. Wind, solar, geothermal, and grid-enabling technologies form the backbone of a decarbonized energy future, costing less and deploying faster than fossil fuels.

Wind and Solar: Pillars of the Transition

Onshore wind ranks #2 in total climate potential (84.6 Gt), while offshore wind contributes another 14.1 Gt. Costs have fallen sharply, making wind the cheapest electricity source in much of the world. Similarly, solar farms (#8; 36.9 Gt) and rooftop solar (#10; 24.6 Gt) scale rapidly and democratize power access. Bangladesh’s millions of rooftop systems illustrate how renewables uplift communities by replacing polluting kerosene.

Grid Flexibility, Storage, and Microgrids

Renewables need supportive infrastructure. Drawdown highlights microgrids (like Freiburg’s Solar Settlement) and storage technologies—batteries, pumped hydro, molten salt—as essential enablers. These not only balance variable generation but improve resilience in disasters. Embedded savings from these systems are integrated into renewable models to avoid double counting, yet their real-world value is larger still.

Beyond Electricity: Geothermal, Biomass, and Novel Technologies

Geothermal power (#18; 16.6 Gt) provides renewable baseload energy; biomass (#34; 7.5 Gt) serves as transitional dispatchable power when based on waste streams rather than logging. Advanced options like artificial photosynthesis and hydrogen-boron fusion hint at an even broader clean-energy horizon—offering synthetic fuels and potentially limitless energy if technological challenges fall.

Why it matters

Renewables use ~99% less water than fossil generation and save trillions by avoiding fuel costs. As the book argues, the transition is both an engineering and economic inevitability—a race already being won by markets rather than mandates.

Your plate is a climate tool. The global food system emits roughly a quarter of all greenhouse gases, but Drawdown shows how changing both demand and supply can transform it from problem to solution. Eating differently, wasting less, and farming regeneratively could avert over 150 gigatons of CO₂ equivalent by 2050.

Diet and Waste: The Demand Side

Reduced food waste (#3; 70.5 Gt) and plant-rich diets (#4; 66.1 Gt) are twin levers. Waste differs by context: in low-income nations, better storage and infrastructure matter most; in wealthy countries, consumer behavior and regulation drive change. Policy efforts like France’s ban on supermarket food waste and campaigns such as Feeding the 5000 demonstrate achievable success.

Regenerative Agriculture and Soil Carbon

Regenerative agriculture (#11; 23.2 Gt) restores soil organic matter through cover crops, no-till, and composting. The Rodale Institute’s decades-long trials confirm both climate and productivity benefits. Similar tactics in rice (System of Rice Intensification) cut methane, while digesters, composting, and biochar turn waste streams into carbon sinks.

Agroforestry and Silvopasture

Tree-based systems—silvopasture (#9; 31.2 Gt), multistrata agroforestry (#28; 9.3 Gt), and tree intercropping—blend productivity with sequestration. They shield livestock from heat, increase yields, and mimic natural forests. Case studies from the Iberian dehesa to Brazil’s Fazenda da Toca prove ecological farming can scale commercially.

The bottom line

To regenerate food systems, you must change both appetite and agriculture. Support farmers who rebuild soil carbon and choose diets that lighten the planet’s load—small shifts compound into gigaton-scale drawdown.

Land and ocean-edge ecosystems are Earth’s natural carbon vaults. Drawdown details how protecting and restoring them—forests, peatlands, and coastal wetlands—provides some of the fastest and cheapest climate solutions while advancing biodiversity and livelihoods.

Forests: Protection and Restoration

Tropical and primary forests store staggering carbon reserves. Protecting an additional 687 million acres could avoid ~6.2 gigatons CO₂ by 2050, preventing release of nearly 900 Gt stored in biomass. The Amazon’s deforestation drop in the 2000s—an 80% decline via policy and monitoring—proves governance works when markets and incentives align.

Peatlands: The Hidden Giant

Though only 3% of land, peatlands hold twice as much carbon as all forests combined. Drawdown models protecting and rewetting 608 million acres to avoid 21.6 Gt CO₂ by 2050. Examples from Indonesia’s fire-prone peat zones and Ireland’s transition away from peat fuel show how rewetting and “paludiculture” (wet cultivation) can balance ecology with livelihoods.

Blue Carbon: Coastal Wetlands and Mangroves

Restoring 57 million acres of coastal wetlands secures ~53 Gt of stored CO₂. Beyond carbon, these ecosystems buffer storms and sustain fisheries. However, Drawdown warns that restoration must honor local rights—projects in Senegal demonstrate both promise and pitfalls when ownership and access aren’t respected.

Practical lesson

Protecting intact ecosystems first, then restoring degraded ones, yields maximum impact. Policy tools—like REDD+, tenure security, and supply-chain transparency—turn stewardship into measurable climate action.

Drawdown makes a radical yet evidence-based claim: empowering women and improving rights-based family planning are among the most powerful climate solutions. Education, equality, and secure land tenure directly shape population growth, food security, and carbon storage.

Education and Family Planning

Universal education (#6) and voluntary family planning (#7) each yield about 59.6 Gt potential. Educating girls correlates with smaller, healthier families and resilient economies. Closing the global education gap could lower population projections by hundreds of millions. Programs in Iran and Bangladesh demonstrate how voluntary approaches respect autonomy while transforming societies.

Women Farmers and Land Rights

Women make up roughly 43% of the agricultural labor force but often lack access to land or credit. Equalizing resources could raise yields 20–30% and reduce undernourishment by 100 million people. Empowerment, in this view, is both a moral and material solution: more food, less deforestation, fewer emissions.

Indigenous Land Stewardship

When Indigenous peoples hold secure tenure, deforestation declines and carbon storage rises. Extending secure tenure over 909 million new acres could avoid 6.1 Gt CO₂ while safeguarding 850 Gt in living carbon. Examples include the Kayapo in Brazil and Asia’s biodiverse home gardens. Drawdown emphasizes that conservation succeeds most where rights are respected, not imposed.

Lesson

Investing in girls’ education, family health, and local self-determination produces cascading benefits—social, economic, and planetary. Equity and climate are not separate challenges; they are shared solutions.

Cities hold the key to a low-carbon future. Buildings consume about a third of global energy and transport adds another quarter, but smarter design, efficiency, and electrification can transform both. Drawdown frames urban transformation as both a technological and behavioral shift—how we construct, power, and move through space.

Buildings: Efficiency and Electrification

Retrofitting insulation (#31; 8.3 Gt), adopting LEDs (~13 Gt for households and businesses), and deploying heat pumps (~5.2 Gt) together yield massive savings. Case studies—from the Empire State Building to Hawaii’s Kaupuni Village—show payback through lower bills and comfort. Smart thermostats, dynamic glazing, and district energy systems further optimize performance.

Urban Form and Transport

Design matters. Walkable cities (#54; 2.9 Gt) and bike infrastructure (#59; 2.3 Gt) cut emissions while improving health. Mass transit systems like Curitiba’s Bus Rapid Transit illustrate affordable scalability, and electrified transport multiplies benefits—EVs alone could save 10.8 Gt by 2050. Freight and shipping efficiency, aviation design, and high-speed rail add complementary gains.

Integrated Mobility and Equity

Efficient, clean mobility only works within equitable urban systems. Walkability and shared e-mobility succeed when infrastructure and land-use policies make them accessible for all. The long-term view: electrify everything, share more, and redesign both streets and habits around sustainability.

System insight

Urban and transport solutions reinforce one another: less sprawl and more electrification generate cleaner air, safer streets, and measurable gigaton-scale reductions.

The materials we use—and how we handle waste—hold climate leverage that rivals entire sectors. Drawdown emphasizes refrigeration, cement, and recycling as underappreciated frontiers where circular flows and policy reforms can unlock enormous benefits.

Cooling Solutions

Refrigerant management (#1) tops all solutions at an 89.7 Gt potential. Phasing out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) under the Kigali Amendment and recovering old refrigerants are crucial actions. These gases have up to 9,000 times the warming potential of CO₂, so capturing them is like sealing leaks in the planet’s air conditioner.

Circular Materials

Shifting to circularity—recycling, reusing, and redesigning materials—cuts industrial emissions. Blended cements save 6.7 Gt, while recycling (household and industrial combined) adds ~5.5 Gt potential. Initiatives like Interface’s Net-Works show circular value chains that clean oceans and generate livelihoods simultaneously.

System Changes

Circular business models need producer responsibility laws, design standards, and consistent markets for secondary materials. The climate gain lies not only in avoided waste but in redesigning production to emulate ecosystems—where nothing becomes garbage.

Key idea

The industrial metabolism of the planet can run on loops instead of lines. Every recovered refrigerant, recycled ton, and reimagined supply chain brings us closer to true drawdown.

Nature itself offers the most profound models for sustainability. From perennial agriculture and agroforestry to marine permaculture, Drawdown celebrates living systems that regenerate rather than deplete.

Regenerative and Perennial Farming

Practices like pasture cropping, silvopasture, and perennial grains (such as Kernza from The Land Institute) allow continuous cover and carbon storage. Australian farmer Colin Seis’s pasture cropping tripled soil carbon while increasing profits—proof that ecological and economic outcomes align. Microbial farming further reduces fertilizer emissions by using biology instead of chemistry.

Ocean Cultivation and Marine Permaculture

Oceans absorb half of anthropogenic CO₂, yet productivity is declining. “Marine permaculture” seeks to reverse this by creating floating kelp forests that restore nutrient upwelling, sequester carbon, and revive fisheries. Red seaweed as livestock feed even offers 70–90% methane reduction in trials. Coastal multitrophic farms—combining oysters, seaweed, and shellfish—improve water quality and local resilience.

Big takeaway

Working with, not against, nature is the most scalable technology available. Regenerative land and sea systems are engines of both climate repair and human prosperity.