Climate change mitigation encompasses efforts to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen carbon sinks, in order to avert irreversible climate effects and protect human health. It is an integral component of long-term sustainability.
This perspective paper details knowledge gaps related to climate change mitigation implementation. These gaps include conceptualisation, operationalisation and assessment of agents’ concerns as well as any disparate power relations among agents that may hinder success in implementation.
What is Mitigation?
Mitigation means limiting greenhouse gas emissions in order to draw them down in the atmosphere, as pledged by world leaders in Paris Agreement of 2015.
However, global emissions continue to rise and we’re far off track in meeting the 1.5deg C threshold envisioned in the recent Lancet Pathfinder Commission report.
Climate change mitigation includes preventative, mitigation and compensatory measures as well as shifting human behaviors that contribute to risks.
Substituting meat-based diets with plant-based ones helps lower carbon dioxide emissions while providing health co-benefits. Furthermore, cutting fossil fuel extraction and improving energy efficiency across homes, businesses, transportation and agriculture all play their parts to lower emissions. A supportive environment must also be created through policies, investments and regulations; setting limits on emissions while offering incentives or encouraging investments is critical in this effort. Finally, protecting critical ecosystems like forests, wetlands and coral reefs plays a pivotal role in mitigating emissions while simultaneously supporting food production while providing water security benefits.
Reducing Fossil Fuel Emissions
Three-quarters of human greenhouse gas emissions come from burning fossil fuels, so mitigation strategies usually focus on reducing or switching away from those sources with cleaner ones. This may involve switching from coal and oil power plants to renewable energies like wind and solar, protecting forests instead of cutting them down, or capturing methane gas from landfills as sources.
Individuals or households can take steps to mitigate CO2 emissions by using less energy, properly insulating buildings, traveling by bike or public transit and purchasing efficient appliances and lighting products. Communities and nations can reduce emissions by improving efficiency of buildings, transmission systems and vehicles as well as by changing agricultural practices that produce high levels of methane or nitrous oxide emissions – these actions all play a part in supporting mitigation.
Climate action should come from everyone, with those responsible for producing most emissions taking responsibility first. That is why wealthy developed nations have pledged $100 billion per year in aid for developing nations to help mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Carbon Pricing
Carbon pricing is an integral element of an effective mitigation portfolio and can be implemented through various mechanisms. Taxes and charges on fossil fuels or emissions limitations through cap-and-trade systems may impose costs upstream; or they can be enforced downstream via limits on aggregate emissions enforced with tradable permits that firms must own to emit. Carbon prices provide a price signal, and this signal can be reinforced through various policies such as technology mandates and innovation incentives to fully unlock their potential (Resources for the Future, 2017). Carbon pricing provides policymakers with flexibility when it comes to raising new revenues for green infrastructure projects, worker retraining programs, resilient communities and clean energy R&D initiatives. Beyond its behavioral effects, policymakers can use carbon pricing as a powerful revenue-raising strategy. Household rebates or green infrastructure development could all benefit from new revenue raised via carbon pricing schemes.
Multiple studies demonstrate the efficacy and cost-efficiency of carbon pricing policies as an emissions mitigation mechanism, with studies finding significant reductions compared to business as usual trajectories while being cheaper than alternatives such as severance taxes on coal mining or natural gas drilling operations. Carbon pricing also allows consumers to directly consider social costs when making purchasing decisions.
Adaptation
Adaptation measures help people adapt to climate change by protecting them from rising sea levels, growing drought-resistant crops, constructing flood defences and adapting energy systems to reduce air conditioning usage as temperatures increase. Such adaptation options could range from moving higher ground in order to avoid rising sea levels or cultivating drought-resistant crops or increasing air conditioning efficiency when temperatures soar.
Successful adaptation is a multidimensional and iterative process with local, national, regional and global implications. Governments play an essential role in leading planning efforts and supporting implementation; but communities also play an essential role–particularly in low-resource countries where government assistance may be limited–along with accurate climate information such as local risk assessments as well as monitoring, learning and evaluating systems.
Understanding how various adaptation measures function is key to making effective investment and funding decisions for adaptation initiatives. Some actions may have unintended negative outcomes, such as building sea walls that destroy coastal ecosystems or insulate homes that increase cooling energy demand leading to other environmental issues. Measures with benefit-cost ratios greater than 1.5 should be prioritized while costs and benefits must be carefully considered (Valverde et al, 2022). This will assist investors and funders alike with adaptation decisions.