With climate droughts, heat waves and fires ravaging three continents and the threat of a new surge in global warming, the world urgently needs to jumpstart solutions to reduce carbon pollution. But which solutions are the most critical? Project Drawdown has detailed the potential, feasibility and costs of nearly a hundred climate solutions since it was founded in 2017. Executive director Jonathan Foley, a leading climate scientist, spoke to AFP about how to assess and prioritize the actions needed to keep the Earth viable. The following interview has been edited for length and flow: Question: What are the three most important questions when evaluating the usefulness and integrity of carbon reduction solutions? Answer: Is it now available and ready to deploy? Because we need to start bending the emission curve immediately. Is it cost effective? Otherwise, it will not scale efficiently. Does it create co-benefits for people, especially in terms of health, jobs, equality and justice? This will make him much more attractive. Question: Much hope – and investment – is directed at technological solutions such as filtering fossil fuel pollution or removing CO2 from the air. Comment? Answer: While very limited carbon removal will be needed by mid-century, the vast majority of the work we need to do—more than 95 percent—is reducing emissions, and we're doing it now. I think that of the five percent focused on carbon removal, it should be more than 90 percent nature-based removal, such as ecological restoration and regenerative agriculture. Machine removal is unlikely to work to any meaningful extent. (Marlowe Hood, BARRON'S)