Project Save the World Climate Priorities: A Summary
April 2026
Background
Project Save the World (PSW) convened a panel of approximately 20 experts and informed citizens to evaluate a selected set of proposed additional or under-utilized actions to further limit global climate change. The panel met virtually five times, concluding on Earth Day, April 22, 2026. Proposals were originally rated in three categories: Proven/Established, Promising but Unproven, and Should Not Be Considered. From there, approaches considered most urgent were identified. Consideration was given to the current state of knowledge of each approach, its potential effectiveness and downsides, and its political feasibility.
The inquiry also considered current actions focused on by the Conference of Parties (COP), the decision-making body of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. These actions include:
· cutting emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) resulting from combustion of fossil fuels by shifting to other non-CO2 emitting sources of energy and increasing energy efficiency;
· reducing carbon release from deforestation and land cover change and doing more to protect forests, grasslands, wetlands, and mangroves;
· expanding regenerative agriculture and burial of carbon as biochar;
· reducing emissions of methane (CH4) from natural gas leakage, waste disposal sites, sewage treatment facilities, and agriculture; and
· enhancing resilience and adaptation as significant impacts are expected because it will take decades for global warming to be stabilized, much less brought back to a lower level.
Key Finding
There was unanimous agreement that current efforts are not only insufficient to hold warming to at or well below the Paris Accord upper limit of 2°C but might even allow a doubling of the present 1.5°C warming by the end of the 21st century. With the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events increasing, thawing of permafrost emitting CO2 and CH4, and with the increasing destabilization of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets leading to the potential for a meter or more of sea level rise by the end of the century and ongoing rises thereafter, the Key Finding was that much more must be done urgently to avoid catastrophic consequences for humanity and the environment.
Top Priorities Identified by the Panel
The PSW inquiry considered a wide range of additional steps that could be undertaken to materially reduce the risks of catastrophic climate change over the next few decades. There was agreement that of the many ideas worthy of further consideration and implementation, a few merited priority attention because of their potential to deliver timely and positive global climate outcomes by mid-century. These actions include both new efforts and acceleration of existing efforts as only a broad-based collection of efforts has the potential to credibly limit and bring global warming under control.
1. Solar Radiation Management (SRM): Building on understanding that increases in stratospheric aerosol loading by major volcanic eruptions have increased planetary albedo and led to global cooling for 1-2 years, there are a number of proposals for using technological steps to do likewise over a prolonged period. With greenhouse gas (GHG) induced global warming itself reducing planetary albedo (e.g., by reducing snow, sea-ice, and cloud cover), the only near-term approach to offsetting ongoing warming is the deployment of low-risk cooling interventions. High priority is needed for substantially increasing funding for research, development, and prospective deployment of the most feasible SRM approaches for increasing global reflection of sunlight by about 1 to 1.5%. Such albedo reductions, coupled with decreased emissions of GHGs, could offset much of the warming being caused by continuing dependence on fossil-fuel-derived energy, likely with lower risk than going forward without such intervention.
The most-studied SRM approach to date is increasing stratospheric aerosol loading. Most feasible is intervention during the most sunlit months in the high latitudes where warming and surface albedo reductions have been the greatest. Polar-focused cooling would also draw heat from lower latitudes, likely moderating global warming’s impacts in mid- and low latitudes. Minimizing the risks and uncertainties can best be addressed with modeling, laboratory experiments, field studies, and commitment to an adaptive observe-learn-adjust-optimize deployment approach.
Establishing a governance structure has been an inhibiting factor in moving forward. The life-endangering impacts affecting highly vulnerable low- and high-latitude nations and peoples are making quite urgent the need for cooling interventions, meriting their substantial participation and leadership. While the wealth, infrastructure, and air conditioning in developed nations may make their need for intervention a bit less urgent, their technological capabilities will likely be needed.
2. Reductions in the warming influences of methane and other short-lived species: The relatively short atmospheric lifetimes and powerful warming influence of methane, tropospheric ozone, and black carbon provide important near-term opportunities to reduce their influences on warming. Enforcement of the existing international commitment by a hundred-plus nations to reduce emissions is needed. Cost-effective reductions are already feasible for many sources of methane and leaking natural gas. Innovative approaches for reducing methane’s atmospheric lifetime and the atmospheric concentrations of other GHGs) also merit investigation.
3. Utility-scale renewable electricity generation distributed widely by long-distance transmission networks: Inadequate long-distance transmission capabilities are holding up distribution of low-cost, renewably generated electricity from where it can be optimally generated to where it is most needed. The world has abundant, pollution-free solar, wind, geothermal, and hydropower resources that can be efficiently tapped to replace inefficiently generated, carbon-based energy. Augmenting the existing alternating current electricity transmission networks with sub-continental to continental-scale networks of buried, high-voltage, direct-current (HVDC) transmission lines would greatly improve access to renewable energy, especially if also linked to large-scale storage facilities, existing nuclear and other generating plants, and the emerging electricity needs of data centers, electric vehicles, desalination plants, and hydrogen generation facilities. The connectivity of the HVDC addition would also facilitate reliability and reduce vulnerability to severe weather. In addition, the faster the mitigation, the less the amount and duration of intervention needed.
The Urgent Need for These and Further Additional Measures
While a few nations have succeeded in significantly reducing emissions, widespread displacement of fossil fuels is proving challenging for economic, practical, and technological reasons compounded by the inertia created by the deep entrenchment of fossil fuels across the global economy. Even accelerated decarbonization is unlikely to be sufficient on its own to avert climate catastrophe in coming decades, especially because natural feedbacks will likely further exacerbate risks from permafrost thaw, ice-sheet destabilization, overstressed ecosystems and more. Continuing to act “too little and too late” will greatly increase the likelihood and severity of all the harms associated with global climate change, including the potential for widespread societal and ecosystem collapse. We have the capability to avert catastrophe. Our challenge is to deploy our communal wit and will to do it.
PSW urges policymakers to treat climate change and associated sea level rise as an emergency requiring, even in the face of limited knowledge, urgent action to advance and deploy a full range of existing and additional approaches directed at reducing the unacceptable catastrophic environmental risks facing humanity and the rest of life with which we share this planet.
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Compiled from deliberations of the PSW Climate Crisis Public Inquiry panel, April 2026. Panel members represented a range of disciplines and regions. This summary does not constitute unanimous endorsement of every finding by every participant nor mention of all of the interesting proposals for additional action.
