Climate change mitigation seeks to decrease emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases while strengthening carbon sinks that remove them from the atmosphere. Programs supporting energy efficiency, renewable energies and vehicles with more environmentally-friendly designs are included as components of climate change mitigation strategies.
These efforts can range from global to local scale and include tasks like restoring forests or improving cooking stove designs; all will help reach the safe goal of 1.5degC above pre-industrial temperatures in future warming trends.
Energy
Energy production produces a large share of greenhouse gases that heat our planet’s atmosphere, so reducing these emissions can help address climate change while simultaneously encouraging an eco-friendly future.
Human activities affect climate systems through emissions and processes that remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, known as radiative forcing. To limit global warming and its consequences, mitigation strategies should aim for net zero emissions over time – an approach known as net-zero emission strategies.
Forests, wetlands, agricultural soils and grasslands serve as natural carbon sinks that help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. To preserve these sinks effectively, measures must be implemented to prevent deforestation and land degradation; not only can this contribute to climate mitigation efforts but it will also enhance biodiversity and water cycles.
Transport
Transportation is an integral component of human society, connecting us with work, education, food and recreation – while contributing over 23% of global emissions.
Reducing emissions in the transport sector can be achieved with low-carbon fuels, vehicle technologies and strategies to curb travel demand. An average passenger car produces about 20 pounds of carbon dioxide for every trip it makes; decreasing vehicle use is an effective way of decreasing emissions significantly.
Cities that prioritize sustainable mass transit can reduce greenhouse gas emissions while reaping other advantages, including decreased congestion, air pollution, and costly infrastructure investments. Innovative technology can assist cities in creating more eco-friendly transportation systems by tracking traffic patterns, commuter behavior and weather to create solutions tailored more closely to travel demand in real time.
Buildings
Buildings account for an increasing share of global GHG emissions, making climate change mitigation in this sector a top priority. Potential solutions lie mainly in changing behavior and adopting technologies which reduce energy use and emissions.
Apart from energy efficiency and renewables, other ways of decarbonizing the building sector include: avoiding embodied carbon by decreasing use of materials with carbon intensive properties; shifting to sustainable building components that support circular economies; increasing biodiversity while improving occupant wellbeing through biophilic design.
Research shows that taking mitigation actions in the building sector can bring many other benefits beyond direct climate action, including microeconomic and macroeconomic effects, health impacts, environmental benefits and improved natural resource management as well as socioeconomic effects for communities. Implementation can even contribute to meeting four of the Sustainable Development Goals while reinforcing another seven.
Agriculture
Agriculture plays a pivotal role in mitigating climate change. Crops, hedgerows and trees sequester carbon from the atmosphere while soils can be managed to store carbon. But agriculture also contributes to climate change by emitting greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide from its production activities – including methane and nitrous oxide emissions from livestock farms.
Stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide requires drastic reductions in emissions – ultimately reaching zero. The same holds true for other long-lived greenhouse gases.
Climate-smart farming practices can reduce emissions while simultaneously producing co-benefits such as increased water infiltration, improved nutrient cycling and fewer chemical applications, as well as building more resilient soils over time. This approach to climate solutions is known as agriculture-based climate solutions.
Water
Water is an indispensable resource that must be put at the center of climate change mitigation actions, as all mitigation strategies rely on it, whether for energy production, ecosystem protection from floods and droughts or sequestering carbon in soils and wetlands.
Poorly managed water systems are one of the primary contributors of greenhouse gas emissions, specifically methane and nitrous oxide which have more significant climate warming potential than carbon dioxide by trapping heat and contributing to atmospheric warming over many decades.
Climate change’s water-related impacts are far-reaching, from drought to rising sea levels, changing temperature to altered rainfall patterns – each having an immense toll on human health, be it through vector-borne diseases like malaria or stress from environmental and economic changes. Climate change is taking its toll.