Three sector disruptions alone driven by just eight technologies can directly eliminate over 90% of net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide within 15 years. Market forces can be leveraged to drive the bulk of global GHG emissions mitigation because the technologies required are either already commercially available and competitive today, or can be deployed to market before 2025 with the right societal choices. The same technologies will also make the cost of carbon withdrawal affordable, meaning that moonshot breakthrough technologies are not required to solve the ‘Last Carbon Problem’ and go beyond net zero from 2035 onwards.

Key Implications of the Energy, Transportation, and Food Disruptions for Climate Change

• We can achieve net zero emissions much more quickly than is widely imagined by deploying and scaling the technology we already have.

• We can achieve net zero emissions without collateral damage to society or the economy.

• Markets can and must play the dominant role in reducing emissions.

• Decarbonizing the global economy will not be costly, it will instead save trillions of dollars.

• A focused approach to reducing emissions is better than an all-of-the-above ‘whack-a-mole’ approach.

• We no longer need to trade off the environment and the economy against each other.

• The clean disruption of energy, transportation, and food will narrow rather than widen the gap between wealthy and poor communities, and developed and less-developed countries.

• The same technologies that allow us to mitigate emissions will also enable us to withdraw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere affordably.

• Societal choices matter, and technology alone is not enough to achieve net zero emissions.