Drawdown 2020

As long-time readers of this blog know, the Drawdown project and book were my inspiration for starting this blog. The blog’s original name even included the word Drawdown (+ Data Science). Even while running my new company, I keep an eye on Drawdown. I heard their Executive Director Jonathan Foley speak some months back, so I knew that a new version of Drawdown was coming. In this post, I aim to spread the word on the new version and summarize the changes.

The Drawdown Review

Perhaps the most impressive contribution of the updated Drawdown website is the availability of “The Drawdown Review,” a 104-page PDF that discusses the updated research behind Drawdown. I won’t attempt to summarize the PDF here, but based on my initial skim, it’s comprehensive and empowering. I will mention some things that jumped out at me:

• One of their “10 Key Insights” was Climate solutions are interconnected as a system, and we need all of them. At Climate Companion, we agree – there is no “silver bullet.”
• Another key insight that is a great reminder: We cannot reach Drawdown without simultaneously reducing emissions toward zero and supporting nature’s carbon sinks.
• Number 7 in the key insights mentioned the need to widen our lens when considering solutions. For example, I’ve talked about reducing food waste, which together with plant-rich diets curbs demand, deforestation, and associated emissions.
• In addition to classifying solutions into sectors, the Review organizes them into three areas of action: reducing sources, supporting carbon sinks, and improving society. I talk more about the sectors below.

As with the previous version, the team defines “Drawdown” as the future point in time when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline.

Scenario Changes

In the prior Drawdown analysis, three scenarios were modeled, the “Plausible,” “Drawdown” (achieving drawdown by 2050), and “Optimum.” The new version includes two scenarios, the first reaching Drawdown by the mid-2060s, the other reaching it by the mid-2040s with bolder, faster, and more pervasive adoption of the solutions. Scenario 1 keeps global warming close to 2°C while Scenario 2 keeps it close to 1.5°C.

Solution Changes

The core of the work for Drawdown 2.0 was updating their models – both the climate and financial impacts – and incorporating new solutions into those models. As I’ll discuss more below, the Sectors that the Drawdown team analyzed have been reorganized a bit as part of this effort. For example, the new Coastal and Ocean Sinks sector includes two solutions, with more to come. Since the old and new solutions don’t map one to one, as discussed further below, it’s hard to quickly assess how many completely new solutions were assessed in this version of Drawdown.

Below I list the top 10 solutions of the prior (1.0) and new (2.0, Scenarios 1 and 2) versions of Drawdown.

Some notes on the changes:

• The former distinct solutions of “Educating Girls” and “Family Planning” are now combined into the single solution “Health and Education”
• The former “Tropical Forests” solution seems to have essentially the same meaning as the new “Tropical Forest Restoration”
• The solar solutions have been slightly renamed
• “Alternative Refrigerants” was not explicitly analyzed in the prior Drawdown analysis, but may have been part of “Refrigerant Management;” the latter remains a top 10 solution
• “Improved Clean Cookstoves” moved into the top 10, displacing Silvopasture. Clean Cookstoves was ranked #21 in the prior analysis; Silvopasture is ranked #11 in both new Scenarios
• For more details on the earlier version of Drawdown’s analysis, see the original book; I wrote a post just over a year ago summarizing the analysis

Sector Changes

In Drawdown 1.0, there were seven sectors. Below I reproduce Figure 2 from their earlier website which shows the avoided emissions for each of these sectors in the original Scenarios.

The new sectors, classified by the areas of action, are:

• Reduce Sources
  • Electricity
  • Food, Agriculture, and Land Use
  • Industry
  • Transportation
  • Buildings
• Support Sinks
  • Land Sinks
  • Coastal and Ocean Sinks
  • Engineered Sinks
• Improve Society
  • Health and Education

So new sectors are: Industry, Coastal and Ocean Sinks, Engineered Sinks, and Health and Education. Here is a chart from the Drawdown Review that breaks down the sectors by minimum and maximum CO2-equivalent (Gt) reduced or sequestered by 2050.

Other Changes

New in Drawdown 2020 is a discussion of “Accelerators” – approaches to remove implementation barriers and accelerate solution implementation and expansion. Their seven accelerators include things like altering rules and policy, and improving technology.

The prior version of Drawdown included about 20 “Coming Attractions;” this category is omitted in the new analysis. I didn’t see any of the solutions that were previously analyzed in this category make it into the new analysis but with over 70 solutions, I may have missed something! In the “Engineered Sinks” sector, the site mentions that most of the solutions are “coming attractions,” and that more will be assessed in the future.

Conclusion

I’m glad that Drawdown offers its research results freely, and that they are continuing to make strides in analyzing solutions. For more details on the earlier version of Drawdown’s analysis, see the original book. Also, I wrote a post just over a year ago summarizing that analysis. My key takeaway on seeing the new analysis was that I hope it helps policy makers and decision makers move forward on taking the bold action that we need to solve the complex climate challenge. As quoted from the Drawdown Review: “There is a path forward for the world. The question is how to bring physical, economic, and political possibility into alignment.”

What’s your takeaway from Drawdown 2.0? Please share in the comments!