Every individual can play a part in combatting climate change. From purchasing eco-friendly products to choosing plant-based diets, every action counts towards this cause.

Mitigation involves reducing human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and expanding sinks that remove them from the atmosphere, as well as planning for predicted climate changes and building resilient communities.

Adaptation

Adaptation refers to managing the adverse impacts of climate change on society, including sea-level rise, more intense extreme weather events, food insecurity and land degradation. Adaptation efforts typically include decreasing emissions or expanding natural sinks such as forests and oceans to remove greenhouse gasses from our atmosphere.

Natural solutions may include flood defenses and cultivating new food crops with improved tolerance of higher temperatures. Furthermore, behavioral and policy modifications could include supporting renewable energy and building resilient communities.

At the Paris Agreement negotiations, all countries, both developed and developing alike, had an important part to play in mitigating climate change. Their proposed nationally determined contributions, or NDCs – plans to reduce emissions and build resilience that were determined according to current national circumstances and available options – were discussed during negotiations; UNDP supported these efforts through technical assistance and financing mechanisms.

Mitigation

Climate change mitigation requires reducing overall emission of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, such as methane from agriculture or through renewable energy sources such as solar power or wind power. This goal can be accomplished in numerous ways such as the promotion of renewable energies or by cutting energy consumption; as well as policies designed to increase energy efficiency and lower fossil fuel needs.

Conserving forests and other ecosystems helps mitigate climate change by acting as natural carbon sinks, while their restoration and conservation offer multiple other important advantages like biodiversity preservation and improved water cycles.

To keep global warming to below 2degC, we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions. At the Paris United Nations Climate Change Conference, countries shared their intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs), outlining their plans to reduce their emissions and build resilience. Below is an illustration showing different pathways toward meeting temperature targets by altering emissions trajectory in future.

Technology

Technology can play a significant role in driving down greenhouse gas emissions and increasing carbon sinks by improving energy efficiency, so creative policy solutions should promote or even mandate their adoption as key climate technologies.

Energy efficient washing machines and dryers that reduce electricity usage are great steps forward, yet more is necessary if we want to tackle the full scope of the issue.

Climate technology uses satellite images and supercomputing capabilities to help protect forests from burning by quickly detecting new fires, while space travel and planetary exploration technologies can capture CO2 from the air, turning it into useful ingredients for food and materials production.

UNEP’s Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN) has been harnessing innovations to promote climate change mitigation via the Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator. CTCN’s first impact report showcases their efforts’ positive effects in saving lives and livelihoods; UNEP also works closely with developing nations via GEF to speed their journeys toward low-emission development pathways.

Policy

Governments at all levels can help combat climate change by decreasing heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions and expanding carbon sinks. This includes transitioning to renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, adopting regenerative agriculture practices and protecting and restoring forest ecosystems.

Carbon pricing policies offer numerous policy tools to achieve these objectives, including carbon tax policies that impose an escalating cost on emissions from high-carbon fuels and products, making them less competitive compared with low-emission alternatives. Investments promoting green private production capacity and infrastructure, as well as restructuring financial assets to shift away from carbon intensive activities, can also assist the economy’s transition away from carbon intensive activities.

Conservation efforts can play an integral part in mitigating climate change by supporting land and water management practices that take future climate conditions into account and prioritize resilience. This could involve, for instance, reducing fire risk on forestlands, implementing soil health measures on rangelands or prioritizing wildlife habitat protection in urban planning projects. As climate policies are implemented, discussions about their distributional impacts (i.e. how their implementation might affect different subgroups) become ever more relevant to climate policy discussions.