Governments have several proven tools to cut greenhouse gas emissions, from removing fossil fuel subsidies to investing in grid infrastructure and clean energy jobs. The gap between current national commitments and what’s needed to limit warming to 1.5°C is enormous: about 22 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2030, according to the UN Environment Programme. Closing that gap requires action across energy, transportation, buildings, and land use simultaneously.
End Fossil Fuel Subsidies
The single most impactful step any government can take is to stop making fossil fuels artificially cheap. Governments worldwide subsidize coal, oil, and natural gas both directly (through tax breaks and price controls) and indirectly (by not charging for the health and environmental damage these fuels cause). The International Monetary Fund estimates that raising fuel prices to reflect their true costs would reduce global fossil fuel CO2 emissions 43 percent below projected 2030 levels. That’s a 34 percent drop below 2019 emissions, achieved largely through market forces rather than bans or mandates.
About 60 percent of that reduction comes from less coal use, with petroleum and natural gas accounting for the rest. Even a partial reform, closing just half the gap between current prices and what fuels actually cost society, would cut emissions by 31 percent. Simply removing the most obvious direct subsidies, without touching the hidden costs, still reduces emissions 5 percent below baseline. That makes subsidy reform a sliding scale: every step in the right direction delivers measurable results.
Modernize the Electrical Grid
Renewable energy is only as useful as the grid that carries it. Solar and wind power are intermittent, meaning the electrical system needs upgrades to handle energy that flows unevenly throughout the day. The U.S. Department of Energy announced $3.5 billion for 58 grid projects across 44 states in 2023, leveraging more than $8 billion in combined federal and private investment. These projects focus on making the grid more resilient to extreme weather, preventing wildfires caused by aging infrastructure, and enabling neighborhoods to keep power on during outages through local microgrids.
Grid modernization isn’t just about plugging in more solar panels. It includes smart sensors that predict equipment failures before they happen, battery storage systems that save excess renewable energy for peak demand, and transmission lines that connect windy and sunny regions to population centers hundreds of miles away. Without these upgrades, new renewable capacity sits stranded, and homes still draw power from gas-fired plants during cloudy or calm days. Government investment here acts as a foundation that makes every other climate policy more effective.
Clean Up Transportation
Transportation is one of the largest sources of emissions in most developed countries. Shifting to electric vehicles helps, but the size of the benefit depends heavily on how the electricity itself is generated. Research modeling large-scale EV adoption in the U.S. found that pairing high EV deployment with a cleaner electrical grid could cut CO2 emissions by 33 percent between 2020 and 2050. Without cleaning up the grid at the same time, switching to EVs on their own produced a much smaller reduction of about 11 percent.
This means governments need to pursue both goals together. Setting phase-out dates for new gasoline vehicle sales sends a clear market signal to automakers and consumers, but those deadlines deliver their full potential only when paired with investments in renewable electricity. Expanding public transit, building protected cycling infrastructure, and designing walkable neighborhoods also reduce the total number of miles driven, cutting emissions regardless of what powers the vehicles on the road.
Set Stronger Building Efficiency Standards
Buildings account for a significant share of energy consumption through heating, cooling, and lighting. Updated building energy efficiency standards have a direct, measurable effect on carbon output. Research on commercial buildings found that increasing the intensity of efficiency standards by 1 percent improved carbon emission efficiency by about 0.15 percent. That may sound small, but applied across millions of buildings nationwide over decades, those incremental gains compound into substantial reductions.
For governments, the practical tools include updating building codes to require better insulation, efficient windows, and heat pumps in new construction. Retrofit programs for existing buildings matter even more, since most structures standing today will still be in use in 2050. Financial incentives like tax credits or low-interest loans for homeowners who upgrade their heating systems or add insulation can accelerate the transition without placing the full cost on individual households.
Invest in Carbon Removal Technology
Even aggressive emissions cuts won’t fully solve the problem. Some industries, like cement and steel manufacturing, are extremely difficult to decarbonize. Direct air capture, a technology that pulls CO2 directly from the atmosphere, could help fill the gap. The challenge is cost. Early estimates placed the price at roughly $600 per ton of CO2 captured, far too expensive for large-scale deployment. More recent engineering analyses suggest the cost could fall to between $94 and $232 per ton with improved plant designs and cheaper materials.
Government’s role here is to fund pilot projects and create markets for captured carbon, since no private company will invest billions in a technology that has no buyers. Carbon pricing, where polluters pay per ton of emissions, creates that market by making it financially worthwhile to remove CO2. Experts caution that direct air capture is not a replacement for cutting emissions at the source. It’s a supplement for the hardest-to-eliminate pollution, not a reason to delay action elsewhere.
Capture the Health Savings
Climate policy delivers benefits that go far beyond temperature targets. Burning fossil fuels produces fine particulate matter (tiny particles less than 2.5 micrometers across) that penetrates deep into the lungs and bloodstream, triggering asthma attacks, heart attacks, and premature death. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions simultaneously cleans the air, and the health savings are substantial.
Research from Berkeley Lab estimated that greenhouse gas reduction strategies in the U.S. could save between $6 billion and $14 billion annually in avoided health costs. That translates to $40 to $93 in health benefits for every metric ton of CO2 eliminated. If reductions were implemented faster, reaching 300 million metric tons of CO2 per year, savings could climb to $10 to $24 billion annually. These numbers mean that climate policies partially pay for themselves through lower healthcare spending and fewer missed workdays, a point that often gets lost in debates focused solely on the upfront costs of transitioning away from fossil fuels.
Create More Jobs Than Are Lost
One of the most common objections to aggressive climate policy is the fear of job losses in fossil fuel industries. The data tells a more encouraging story. Economic modeling shows that every $1 million spent in renewable energy or energy efficiency creates roughly 7.5 full-time jobs, compared to about 2.65 jobs from the same spending in fossil fuels. That means each $1 million shifted from fossil fuels to clean energy produces a net gain of about 5 jobs. Across the economy, the expansion of clean energy creates approximately three new positions for every one lost in the fossil fuel sector.
The catch is that the new jobs don’t automatically appear in the same towns or require the same skills as the old ones. Governments need to pair climate policy with targeted workforce programs: retraining for displaced workers, relocation assistance, and investment in communities that have depended on coal mines or oil refineries for generations. Without these transition programs, the economic benefits of clean energy concentrate in new regions while fossil fuel communities bear the costs. A deliberate “just transition” strategy ensures the shift is politically sustainable and doesn’t leave people behind.
Close the Emissions Gap
The UN Environment Programme tracks the difference between what countries have pledged to do and what the climate actually requires. As of 2023, current unconditional national pledges leave a 22 billion metric ton gap for the 1.5°C target and a 14 billion metric ton gap for the less ambitious 2°C target. If countries also follow through on their conditional pledges (commitments that depend on receiving international funding or technology), the 1.5°C gap narrows to 19 billion metric tons and the 2°C gap drops to 11 billion metric tons. These numbers have barely changed from previous years, meaning the world is not making meaningful progress toward closing the gap.
This isn’t a problem that any single policy solves. Subsidy reform, grid modernization, transportation electrification, building standards, carbon removal, and nature-based solutions like reforestation and improved agricultural practices all need to advance at the same time. The math is straightforward: governments collectively need to find ways to eliminate billions of additional metric tons of emissions per year beyond what they’ve already promised. Every year of delay makes the remaining cuts steeper and more expensive.