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To achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, strategic scaling of existing and emerging technologies and practices is imperative. A new “Powers of 10” (P10) logarithmic optimization framework presented here identifies potential optimal scales for implementing climate action strategies between a single individual and the globally projected ~10 billion persons by 2050. Applying a dataset of existing strategies from Project Drawdown, we find prioritizing community to urban-focused climate action strategies can complement top-down and bottom-up efforts and support rapid sustainability transformation.

Land-based climate mitigation measures have gained significant attention and importance in public and private sector climate policies. Building on previous studies, we refine and update the mitigation potentials for 20 land-based measures in >200 countries and five regions, comparing "bottom-up" sectoral estimates with integrated assessment models (IAMs). We also assess implementation feasibility at the country level. Cost-effective (available up to $100/tCO2 eq) land-based mitigation is 8-13.8 GtCO2 eq yr-1 between 2020 and 2050, with the bottom end of this range representing the IAM median and the upper end representing the sectoral estimate. The cost-effective sectoral estimate is about 40% of available technical potential and is in line with achieving a 1.5°C pathway in 2050. Compared to technical potentials, cost-effective estimates represent a more realistic and actionable target for policy. The cost-effective potential is approximately 50% from forests and other ecosystems, 35% from agriculture, and 15% from demand-side measures. The potential varies sixfold across the five regions assessed (0.75-4.8 GtCO2eq yr-1 ) and the top 15 countries account for about 60% of the global potential. Protection of forests and other ecosystems and demand-side measures present particularly high mitigation efficiency, high provision of co-benefits, and relatively lower costs. The feasibility assessment suggests that governance, economic investment, and socio-cultural conditions influence the likelihood that land-based mitigation potentials are realized. A substantial portion of potential (80%) is in developing countries and LDCs, where feasibility barriers are of greatest concern. Assisting countries to overcome barriers may result in significant quantities of near-term, low-cost mitigation while locally achieving important climate adaptation and development benefits. Opportunities among countries vary widely depending on types of land-based measures available, their potential co-benefits and risks, and their feasibility. Enhanced investments and country-specific plans that accommodate this complexity are urgently needed to realize the large global potential from improved land stewardship.

Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and related sustainability initiatives will require halving of global greenhouse gas emissions each decade from now on through to 2050, when net zero emissions should be achieved. To reach such significant reductions requires a rapid and strategic scaling of existing and emerging technologies and practices, coupled with economic and social transformations and novel governance solutions. Here we present a new ‘Powers of 10’ (P10) logarithmic framework and demonstrate its potential as a practical tool for decision makers and change agents at multiple scales to inform and catalyze engagement and actions, complementing and adding nuance to existing frameworks. P10 assists in identifying the suitable cohorts and cohort ranges for rapidly deploying climate and sustainability actions between a single individual and the globally projected ∼ 10 billion persons by 2050. Applying a robust dataset of climate solutions from Project Drawdown’s Plausible scenario that could cumulatively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1051 gigatons (Gt) against a reference scenario (2190 Gt) between 2020 and 2050, we seek to identify a ‘sweet spot’ where these climate and sustainability actions are suitably scaled. We suggest that prioritizing the analyzed climate actions between community and urban scales, where global and local converge, can help catalyze and enhance individual, household and local practices, and support national and international policies and finances for rapid sustainability transformations.