World Solve

Ocean shipping produces a significant share of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet the industry has been slower than others to adopt cleaner fuel alternatives at scale. Speeding up this transition remains an unresolved climate challenge.

Sustainable aviation fuel exists but remains far more expensive and limited in supply than traditional jet fuel, keeping airline adoption slow. Scaling production to meet real demand remains an unresolved industry challenge.

Some carbon offset programs have been found to overstate their actual climate benefit or allow the same emissions reduction to be claimed by multiple parties. Building a fully transparent, verifiable offset system remains an unresolved challenge.

Excess natural gas at oil extraction sites is often simply burned off rather than captured and used, wasting a valuable resource while releasing preventable emissions. Capturing this gas instead of flaring it remains inconsistently adopted across the industry.

Degraded peatlands release significant amounts of stored carbon, and restoring them to their natural, carbon-storing state requires careful, sustained management that many restoration projects don't achieve. Making this restoration reliably effective remains unresolved.

Space missions are still largely framed as national or corporate accomplishments rather than shared human ones, even though the benefits and risks affect everyone. A more collaborative model could accelerate progress and broaden its benefits.

Some countries and industries pay a real cost for carbon emissions, while others pay nothing, creating an uneven playing field that undermines climate goals. A consistent global carbon price remains politically and technically unresolved.

Cement production alone accounts for a huge share of global carbon emissions, yet it remains central to nearly all construction. A low-carbon alternative that's just as strong and cheap would be one of climate policy's biggest wins.

Direct air capture exists, but it's still far too expensive and energy-intensive to make a dent in global emissions. Making it cheap enough to scale is one of the biggest levers left for slowing climate change.

Thousands of pieces of space junk are already circling the planet, threatening satellites and future missions. Left unresolved, orbit could become too cluttered and risky to safely launch into.

Growing crops in space or on other planets means dealing with low gravity, radiation, and limited water and soil. Without solving this, any permanent settlement beyond Earth stays dependent on costly resupply missions.

Outside Earth's magnetic field, cosmic radiation raises cancer risk and can damage the brain and body over time. This is one of the biggest blockers to sending humans to Mars safely.

Current approaches to technologies enabling precise monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions from individual facilities either underperform under variable field conditions or generate externalities that undermine long-term sustainability and equity. Closing the gap requires coordinated advances in science, systems design and enabling institutions.

Organic waste makes up a large share of landfilled municipal waste in Papua New Guinea, generating methane emissions that could be avoided with accessible composting infrastructure.

Create safe, affordable, shelf-stable alternatives or complements to donated blood for trauma, obstetric emergencies, and disaster settings.

Develop affordable kiln upgrades, alternative fuels, financing, and enforcement systems for fragmented brick industries that cause severe emissions and air pollution.

Identify affordable feed, breeding, veterinary, and manure-management interventions that lower methane without reducing farmer income or animal health.

Develop restoration models that reduce emissions and fire risk while providing viable incomes for communities dependent on drained peatland agriculture.

A persistent gap exists in realizing practical, scalable solutions for technologies for the continuous monitoring and verification of methane emissions from multiple sectors. Scientific understanding, engineering readiness and institutional capacity remain insufficient to translate promising concepts into durable impact under real-world constraints of cost, skills and governance.

The absence of robust, context-adapted solutions for pathways for achieving universal access to clean cooking without locking in high emissions creates cascading risks across interconnected human and natural systems. Key missing elements include durable performance, low lifetime cost, and governance arrangements capable of sustaining impact beyond pilot stages.