The Exponential Climate Action Roadmap was produced in preparation for the Global Climate Action Summit in 2018 in San Francisco. The report explores how the Carbon Law can be implemented across all key sectors of the global economy, and concludes that while solutions exist, the scale of transformation will require systems-wide action accelerated by climate leadership, much stronger policy and exponential technologies.

The Paris Agreement’s goal to reduce the risk of dangerous climate change can be achieved if greenhouse gas emissions peak by 2020, halve by 2030, and then halve again by 2040 and 2050. This is now technologically feasible and economically attractive, but the world is not on this path. This roadmap, called the Global Carbon Law, focuses on the immediate priorities, and has three purposes:

  • To communicate the pace, scale, and systemic nature of the necessary economic transformation;
  • To connect the exponential scaling potentials in the digital revolution to the climate challenge;
  • To support momentum across policy, markets, and technology.

Future Earth Global Secretariat co-Chair Johan Rockström introduces the “Carbon Law” and explains how humanity can meet the UN’s Paris Agreement’s climate goal of limiting the global temperature rise to “well below 2°C” from preindustrial times.