Democratizing climate change mitigation pathways using modernized stabilization wedges

Mitigating climate change requires broad societal buy-in. Integrated assessment models (IAMs) produce cost-optimal pathways, but these are complex and not easily customized to reflect individuals’ preferences. Twenty years ago, the stabilization wedge framework introduced a simpler way to discuss decarbonization. Here, we modernized this framework, identifying 36 strategies, each with the potential to mitigate 4% of global emissions by 2050, and quantified their required scale of deployment. People can build personalized decarbonization pathways by choosing a portfolio of these strategies, with more than 6 trillion combinations that are able to limit global warming to 1.5°C. We assessed which strategies IAMs favor and found that they prioritize technological over behavioral and nature-based solutions, with limited agreement. This framework empowers a general audience to construct and debate pathways, by making informed choices that reflect objectives beyond cost-optimization.