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Please don't answer without citing scientific research which has a general consensus or article from a reputable source based on verifiable research citations.

I recently read this article about a 2017 PNAS study from Griscom et al (link below) that "estimated natural carbon solutions (NCS) (essentially ecosystem regeneration) have the potential to provide up to 37 percent of the CO2 mitigation that we'd need through 2030, for a 66 percent chance of holding warming to below 2°C."

Most geoengineering solutions have significant risks or unknowns which greatly reduce their benefit. Reducing fossil fuel use immediately will reduce short-term economic output with replacing with renewables and alternatives. Maybe simply paying drivers incentives to use alternative vehicles is most-cost effective, as transportation is the largest percentage of greenhouse gas emissions in the US (EPA).

Global energy-related CO2 emissions were 33.1 Gt CO2 in 2018 according the [IEA report][6]. Apparently from the Griscom study, $10 USD MgCO2e−1 is the "current cost of emission reduction efforts underway and current prices on existing carbon markets" from 2017. Our CO2 emissions cost us 10 billion USD per year. For reference, global GDP is at US$84.84 trillion for 2018, meaning reducing our entire emissions to zero would cost 0.0001% of global GDP.

Griscom et al, https://www.pnas.org/content/114/44/11645

EDIT: I've moved the physical science question about which current solution is the best to EarthScience.SE, and reworded the political question here which is how to implement the best solution known by science? While the answer might vary by a particular solution, in general, a given solution can be seen to cost x amount of dollars and will take political will to achieve, whether by governmental or non-governmental means. So then how do various political strategies compare and are some better fit for mitigating climate change?

alchemy
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  • Are you asking about solutions for capturing carbon or about keeping global warming below some threshold? – JJJ Sep 22 '19 at 19:28
  • To keep warming below 2°C as is a generally accepted target, but particular solutions are not excluded. – alchemy Sep 22 '19 at 19:35
  • Frankly both your question and [sefl-]answer are probably too technical for politics SE. There's an https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/ – the gods from engineering Sep 22 '19 at 19:43
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    I was considering posting there for scientific solutions, but I would like a political perspective on what mechanisms would be best to implement a solution: carbon pricing, tax, grassroots campaign or even a direct crowdsourced fund. That might depend on the particular solution answer, but maybe I should move that over to earthscience. – alchemy Sep 22 '19 at 19:47
  • I'm not seeing how that angle isn't going to be "primarily opinion based" rather than objective as you ask. – the gods from engineering Sep 22 '19 at 19:52
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    The question field suggested questions can't be too subjective. I'm not sure what that means in politics.SE, but there are probably studies on the efficacy of comparative policy mechanisms. – alchemy Sep 22 '19 at 19:56
  • @Fizz Being "cost-effective" is something at least in theory, quite objective and measurable. [bold added] – Shadow1024 Sep 22 '19 at 19:56
  • @Shadow1024: in practice it depends on many assumptions and many unknowns that researchers might not agree on. I mean look at the self-answer. The first solution has an "unknown cost". – the gods from engineering Sep 22 '19 at 19:57
  • @Fizz Yeah, but "varied estimates" != "subjective". "Many assumptions" means "please list the main assumptions". Well, cynically I'd say, that either we have for those issues reasonably estimated costs and benefits, or we're admitting that whole rationale of trying to curb AGW and tools used are mostly based on gut feeling but not much science. – Shadow1024 Sep 22 '19 at 20:08
  • The closest estimate that I have seen was Bjorn Lomborg and his Copenhagen consensus. They were trying to assess which of policies are the most cost-effective for flourishing of our specie. Let's say, when he started to point out that mosquito nets for poor people (malaria prevention) give much more value for money, than fighting AGW and thus should be the priority, many people stopped liking him. ;) But giving more details would not answer your question, would it? – Shadow1024 Sep 22 '19 at 20:28
  • @Shadow1024 Good reference, I'll read, but ironically, and distastefully, saving lives from malaria could decrease our mitigation of anthropogenic global warming. Then again it might not, it could bring family planning resources. – alchemy Sep 22 '19 at 20:45
  • @alchemy Maybe you'd disagree with my anthropocentric approach here, but for me lives of those people seem like much higher value to protect than climate. This planet was fine even during Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, so it's too early to panic, we're only in the right moment to feel somewhat nervous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum – Shadow1024 Sep 22 '19 at 21:32
  • @Shadow1024 I'd avoid debating values and stick with the content of the question, how to implement the best solution we have. Also, that's a known observation, that doesn't invalidate the IPCC model projections. For example, the sea level was much higher then (probably covering NYC). In addition, look at the rate of change of the CO2 increase in both events.. we're talking 100 years vs 10s of thousands IIRC. – alchemy Sep 22 '19 at 21:53
  • @alchemy I actually read some IPCC reports. There is a serious gap between what those reports tell, and how it's being clikbaited in science illiterate media. If we talk about increase (but of temperature) the way temperature increase between Pleistocene and Holocene was sudden, but instead of being our demise actually even created conditions that allowed our specie to finally kick-start a civilisation. I clicked to reopen, but I'm not sure whether your wording allows or disallows "adapt". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas#/media/File:Younger_Dryas_and_Air_Temperature_Changes.jpg – Shadow1024 Sep 23 '19 at 10:48
  • @Shadow1024, thanks for that, and we surely need to adapt, and mitigating crisis is part of it. From the PETM wikipage, humans are adding CO2 20 times faster than during that period.. Creatures seek homeostasis with their environment, many stabilizing it. That was the time of mammals, not civilization, and our structures far less mobile, so the impacts will likely be more disruptive. Sure change makes room for new growth, but as we are already stressing the natural resources, it might also cause a dark ages. The question is about solving a problem that already has scientific consensus. – alchemy Sep 23 '19 at 19:05
  • @alchemy Sure, we do, just I'd not extrapolate our emission spree on long term period, as sooner or later from mostly technological reasons we should transition to next energy source (as we effectively did from coal to oil). However, concerning some risk of sort of new dark ages, paradoxically I'd agree, just from absolutely different reasons: http://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2016.10.002 – Shadow1024 Sep 23 '19 at 19:24
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. If you're saying we will transition anyway, then that makes it easier to clean up our mess, but we still need to get going. – alchemy Sep 23 '19 at 22:39
  • The question was not closed by mods but by votes from normal users. On StackExchange, any user with sufficient rep can vote to close a question if they think it meets certain criteria. Other users can then vote to reopen it. When it is questionable whether a post is appropriate for this site, it is not uncommon for it to go through multiple rounds of closure and reopening depending on the opinion of the site’s users. – divibisan Sep 26 '19 at 15:43

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I don't see how this is anything other than an opinion fest ultimately. Just consider this BBC news piece

Researchers say an area the size of the US is available for planting trees around the world, and this could have a dramatic impact on climate change.

The study shows that the space available for trees is far greater than previously thought, and would reduce CO2 in the atmosphere by 25%.

The authors say that this is the most effective climate change solution available to the world right now.

But other researchers say the new study is "too good to be true".

The ability of trees to soak up carbon dioxide has long made them a valuable weapon in the fight against rising temperatures.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that if the world wanted to limit the rise to 1.5C by 2050, an extra 1bn hectares (2.4bn acres) of trees would be needed.

The problem has been that accurate estimates of just how many trees the world can support have been hard to come by.

The same issue of the difficulty to estimate costs probably applies to almost every solution proposed.

Also

The study has been published in the journal Science.

So this is not riff-raff, but top-level science. Which doesn't make it bullet proof.

Perhaps a more sobering paper:

The long-term economics of mitigating climate change over the long run has played a high profile role in the most important analyses of climate change in the last decade, namely the Stern Report and the IPCC's Fourth Assessment. However, the various kinds of uncertainties that affect these economic results raise serious questions about whether or not the net costs and benefits of mitigating climate change over periods as long as 50 to 100 years can be known to such a level of accuracy that they should be reported to policymakers and the public. This paper provides a detailed analysis of the derivation of these estimates of the long-term economic costs and benefits of mitigation. It particularly focuses on the role of technological change, especially for energy efficiency technologies, in making the net economic results of mitigating climate change unknowable over the long run.

Because of these serious technical problems, policymakers should not base climate change mitigation policy on the estimated net economic impacts computed by integrated assessment models. Rather, mitigation policies must be forcefully implemented anyway given the actual physical climate change crisis, in spite of the many uncertainties involved in trying to predict the net economics of doing so.

Also there are quite a few more papers/discussion on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_climate_change_mitigation#Assessing_costs_and_benefits

And if you ask an economist:

What is the most economically efficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? The principles of economics deliver a crisp answer: reduce emissions to the point that the marginal benefits of the reduction equal its marginal costs. This answer can be implemented by a Pigouvian tax, for example a carbon tax where the tax rate is the marginal benefit of the emissions reduction or, equivalently, the monetized damages from emitting an additional ton of carbon dioxide (CO2). The carbon externality will then be internalized and the market will find cost-effective ways to reduce emissions up to the amount of the carbon tax. However, most countries, including the United States, do not place an economy-wide tax on carbon, and instead have an array of greenhouse gas mitigation policies that provide subsidies or restrictions typically aimed at specific technologies or sectors.

The rest of the paper goes on dozens of pages discussing these second-best solutions. I've read the conclusion section of the paper too, but other than saying that static cost estimates are probably unsatisfactory, i.e. we need to somehow estimate how much new technology is going to cost... there's no deep conclusion there. (Ok they do say that even for static costs of many programs, the complicated structure of semi-hidden subsidies makes the analysys not always straightforward.)

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the gods from engineering
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  • Thanks @Fizz, that's a great addition. I'm aware of the gaps in our knowledge (Microsoft is helping to calculate the carbon stored in soil), so I'm interested in our best known solution, which doesn't have to be perfect, so we can act on it now. Or if there is dissent for a particular solution, the reason why.. I will look at that article to see if there are references. – alchemy Sep 22 '19 at 20:20
  • That is a great view on a policy decision from the Tellus Institute and Technische Universitaet Dresden, that policymakers should act even with significant unknowns in the models. Since the policymakers at least in the US are not, should we fund the solutions ourselves directly? – alchemy Sep 22 '19 at 20:39
  • Yes, in my answer I relay the Project Drawdown statement that carbon pricing is the 'single most impactful solution'. So how do we get the policymakers to implement it, or the voters to (WA Initiative 732), if we can finally agree on what needs to be done? – alchemy Sep 22 '19 at 20:51
  • technically speaking... if the goal is to plant trees.. wouldn't it be CHEAPER to pay people in Indonesia or Brazil to NOT burn down the rain forest? that does 3 things. 1. Indonesian / Brazilian farmers are much cheaper per hour than first world labor. 2. Burning releases a lot of C02. 3 keeping the trees that already exist also preserves the ecosystem and at the same time capture C02 – dolphin_of_france Sep 24 '19 at 17:32
  • @dolphin_of_france, maybe, it makes sense.. can you find a study to support the claim? There are lots of studies out there, but sometimes no one has spent (or had) the time to do the math. – alchemy Sep 24 '19 at 22:17
  • @alchemy: What study would you need? Think about it. How much does it cost to hire people to plant trees in say, Europe or North America. First you have to do an environmental impact study. Then you have to acquire the land. Then you have to hire specialists to choose the trees to plant. Then you have to hire people (expensive workers, probably unionized) to come in on fossil fuel powered trucks to haul in trees and plant them. Or you can just pay people to not destroy existing forests. No carbon is released. Soil is protected. Species living there preserved. Natives get paid. – dolphin_of_france Sep 24 '19 at 22:20
  • @dolphin_of_france, the evidence is not so much for me as it is for investors who have more money than I, or assuming you, do. But I feel you, it seems obvious. Again, if it is that obvious, there likely is a study or related study out there. Try Google Scholar and see if you can find any numbers that could be compared to figures in my answer from PD. If you find numbers but are not sure how to convert, I'm happy to assist. The question is, is it the most effective way to deal with the problem. You wouldn't want to spend 100 billion on it if Solar Water could reduce CO2e by ten times as much. – alchemy Sep 24 '19 at 23:05
  • @dolphin_of_france, I also agree this is probably the most wholistic answer if more social ills are included in the model. It engages local people in at-risk lands, many of which are in poverty, and by improving their standard of living, it could lower birth rates, which could indirectly have the largest effect of any solution. There may be a study which looks at all those factors together, or several study results could be pieced together, but I asked this question, to find out. I actually alluded this may be the best answer over at my question in EarthScienceSE which is also on hold. – alchemy Sep 24 '19 at 23:11
  • https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/18053/what-is-the-most-cost-effective-solution-to-climate-change-based-on-scientific-e/ "As as corollary, if all benefits of NCS to uncalculated ecosystem services [and even social remedies] were included, would they be the most cost-effective, and what is the average ROI on research investment to calculate them?" – alchemy Sep 24 '19 at 23:12
  • I also posted a request for help on the r/climatechange subreddit, but it was forced to another subreddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/stackexchange/comments/d8rygi/trying_to_support_climate_change_solution_on_se/ Please upvote it. – alchemy Sep 24 '19 at 23:17
  • @alchemy: That is actually a really good question.. cost effective way of improving the environment. Check out vertical farming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT4TWbPLrN8 it is a really cool way to vastly improve agricultural output, improve quality of produce, vastly reduce run offs (of pesticide and fertilizer), shorten the food miles dramatically, and reduce water usage. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-15/in-shift-to-electric-bus-it-s-china-ahead-of-u-s-421-000-to-300 EV buses is also a great idea. (way better than EV cars and far more cost effective) – dolphin_of_france Sep 25 '19 at 13:47
  • @dolphin_of_france, thanks you, the question has been reopened :)! I will check out those resources, vertical farming is very cool, as are EV buses. If you like the physical science question over EarthScienceSE (link above 3 comments) you could help by voting to reopen it. Thanks again! – alchemy Sep 25 '19 at 20:58
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In researching my question to provide what is known so far I found the following information. I won't accept my own answer unless it gets the most upvotes.

I found this ranked list from 'Project Drawdown' (PD) that states managing refrigerants is the number one solution by GT CO2 reduction, but with an unknown cost. Offshore wind turbines (OFTs) seems to be the best solution by total reduction. Electric vehicles (EVs) has the highest savings, but with also the highest cost.

Dividing the reduction amount by the savings leads to OVTs at 11.4 GT CO2 reduction per trillion USD a year (GCR/TUY), then Solar Farms (SFs) at 7.35 and EVs at 1.11 for the top three by savings. However, if all are calculated and ranked, the most reduction by savings is Tree Intercropping at 778 and methane digesters small at 137, the most reduction by cost is Nuclear Energy at 18254 and then Solar Water at 2033, but including the costs with negative numbers (not sure what that means) it's Landfill Methane at -1374 and Solar Farms at -458 GCR/TUY.

I'm not sure if they're including the cost of nuclear accidents or waste storage since waste storage at least in the US has not been reconciled, so using Solar Farms at 2.033 GCR/BillionUY, it would cost 16.3 billion USD per year to reduce the CO2 we emit for energy. Based on a single strategy, that's 2.11 dollars per person in the world (7.7 billion) and $12.50 for every person in the developed world (1.3 billion). Is this correct?

In the PD FAQs they state, "Carbon pricing is a policy mechanism to implement solutions and not in itself a solution to global warming. It is the single most impactful policy proposal that would accelerate the adoption of every solution enlisted."

alchemy
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