Solving Climate Change grew out of a class Jonathan Koomey and Ian Monroe developed and taught at Stanford University titled “Implementing Climate Solutions at Scale”. It had as its primary goal teaching students quantitative and qualitative methods for understanding the rate and scope of change needed to truly face the climate challenge.  Students produced and presented a project for a state, region, or country that achieved net zero emissions by the middle of the twenty-first century, assessing potential emissions reductions and carbon removals in different sectors, based on the resources and characteristics of their chosen location, with some students going beyond net zero to net climate-positive.

This textbook introduces tools for understanding how to reduce emissions rapidly, hitting net zero emissions no later than 2040, then pushing beyond to remove carbon from the atmosphere and reduce carbon dioxide concentrations to those of the stable climate in which human civilization developed. We’ve written this book first and foremost as a resource for professors and students ready to teach and learn the key analytical tools needed to create a climate-positive world. We hope self-motivated investors, entrepreneurs, policymakers, climate solution practitioners, and others who want to learn these skills on their own will also find this book useful.