Georgia takes giant step in addressing climate-related issues

Our state recently launched Drawdown Georgia, becoming the first state to introduce an ambitious, solutions-based climate effort based on the most rigorously assessed solutions available today. It’s a new movement to accelerate climate solutions based on Georgia’s unique economic, natural and social resources.

Our mission is to bring people and organizations working on climate together to quickly advance solutions that have the best potential to take a big bite out of emissions in Georgia, and to do it in ways that create jobs, is equitable, and that improves public health and has a positive environmental impact. We have isolated 20 specific strategies for Georgia across five sectors: transportation, electricity, buildings & materials, food & agriculture, and land sinks.

We estimate that we can reduce our carbon footprint from 125 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent to 79 megatons by 2030 — at least a one-third reduction.

In Albany, breathing life into Drawdown Georgia solutions will likely come from solutions in our food & agriculture sector: approaches like conservation agriculture, which relies on practices such as crop rotation, cover cropping, and reduced tillage to benefit the land and sequester carbon in the plants and soil. So much innovation is happening across Georgia already when it comes to conservation, and it can accelerate as we champion our state’s farmers and their ability to help reverse global warming.

We believe Georgia is a state of change — join us!

John Lanier

Atlanta