Fighting Climate Change

Fighting Climate Change

So what can be done to fight climate change?

Countries, businesses, and individuals all have a role to play in reducing emissions. There are a variety of strategies and tools that can be used to measure and manage reductions and environmental impact.

Strategies

Mitigation

Mitigation is an intervention made by humans to reduce the human impact on the environment and climate system as a whole. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a strategy to do so.
For example, a business may mitigate its greenhouse gas emissions by switching its vehicle fleet to electric and ensuring that they are using a renewable energy source.

Adaptation

Adaptation refers to making adjustments and preparing human and natural systems for a changing environment caused by the effects of climate change.

For example, residents of a city may relocate to higher ground to adapt to the rising sea level.

Resilience

Resilience is having the ability to anticipate, respond, and recover from hazardous threats while maintaining minimal damage to the environment, economy, and society.

For example, a country may anticipate the negative effects of climate change on its building structure and make precautionary changes in building materials in order to be resilient against the anticipated changes.

Science-Based Targets

Science-Based Targets (SBTs) show companies how quickly they need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the worst effects of climate change. SBTs align with the Paris Climate Agreement and account for the most up-to-date climate science.

The Paris Climate Agreement aims to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. The target goal is to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels while pursuing the means to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees.

By setting an SBT, companies are held accountable, while tackling climate change, seizing the benefits, and gaining an edge on their competition throughout their decarbonization journey.

Net Zero

Net Zero is the state at which the addition of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere is balanced by the removal of the gasses from the atmosphere. Reducing all emissions to zero in line with the timescale needed would be extremely difficult and complex.

The following terms are often used interchangeably with Net Zero, however, there are slight variations when setting targets for emission reductions.