The basic facts about climate change are clear: it’s warming. It’s us. We’re sure.

Scientists may debate how fast our world will heat up in this century and how far the impacts will reach. Political leaders, heads of business, and people in the streets may debate what to do about it. But there is no question that climate change is an urgent threat that demands immediate action at all scales.

A variety of factors, both natural and human, influence the earth’s climate. But it’s humans — and more specifically, the greenhouse gases we emit — that are the leading cause of climate change. We are putting more greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide (CO ₂ ), into the air than our planet can absorb, mostly by burning fossil fuels like oil, natural gas, and coal, and by logging our forests. As a result, we are creating devastating disruptions to the normal functions of climate and nature, which in turn are undermining human health, livelihoods, security, and quality of life.

"we're the first generation that actually sees climate change in human history. Most climate change has been us going in and out of ice ages over thousands of years. Now we're seeing things happen over tens of years.”

DR. WARREN WASHINGTON, DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR, NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH

The good news is that we are not too late and solutions are already here. With bold action, we can still avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change, mitigate the damage already done, and do it in a more equitable way.

Why This Matters

Our planet is approximately 1°C warmer today than it was in pre-industrial times. Doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

It’s bad. 1°C of warming has already contributed to the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme heat and heat waves, drought and heavy rains, hurricanes, and events like catastrophic wildfires and floods that are linked to these weather extremes. Average temperatures are rising and the pace of sea-level rise is increasing. Ocean acidification is happening faster than at any time in the last 20 million years.

In turn, these climate-related extremes are impacting humans in ruinous ways. People are suffering malnutrition, food insecurity, and loss of livelihoods due to the destruction of land, livestock, crops, and food supplies like seafood. Millions are being forced to migrate due to rising seas, stronger storms and floods — and because of violence and political instability exacerbated by climate-related shocks.

Meanwhile, plants and animals are going extinct tens to hundreds of times faster than the average from the past ten million years. Just one example: Australia’s Great Barrier Reef lost roughly 50% of its corals in two massive bleaching events in 2016 and 2017.

Many of us are fortunate to be relatively insulated from hunger and dislocation. That doesn’t mean we’re immune to the impacts of climate change. For Californians, summer 2020 brought wildfires of historic scale that claimed over 30 lives and cost an estimated $10 billion of damage. Even those of us not in the direct path of the fires experienced weeks of hazardous air quality and the occasional rolling blackout.

What’s Equity Got to Do with It?

The impacts of climate change are not equitable. While rich countries historically have contributed most to our carbon emissions problem, it’s people in the world’s poorest countries who bear the brunt of climate impacts. Bangladesh is responsible for 0.3 % of emissions that cause global warming; its per capita fossil fuel emissions are 30 times less than the U.S. Yet Bangladesh is near the top of the Global Climate Risk Index. Researchers predict it could lose 10% of its territory to sea level rise within a few decades, displacing 18 million people.

Here in the United States, communities of color and low-income communities are hit first and worst by climate change and the air pollution that contributes to it. People of color, particularly Black, Latino, and Indigenous people, are more likely to live near fossil-fuel powered facilities that create high levels of air pollution or be affected by water contamination. Formerly redlined neighborhoods are hotter than non-redlined neighborhoods. Communities that live in these areas are more likely to face serious health consequences. For example, researchers are finding that many adults infected with COVID-19 are more vulnerable due to environmental health damage they experienced as children.

How Do We Fix It?

If we want to avoid even more dramatic impacts, we need to stay under a 1.5°C increase in global mean temperatures. We need transformative changes at global scale. And we need them fast: at the current rate, the world could be 1.5°C hotter as soon as 2030, only a decade from now!

Scientists estimate that to keep under 1.5°C, we must cut CO2 emissions in half by 2030 and reach net-zero by mid-century. How do we do that? What takes its place? Simply put, we need to stop emitting the bad and build the good.

"Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand, that fiddled while the planet burned?”

ANTONIO GUTERRES, UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL

We need to focus on places where human activity is causing the most damage: fossil fuel extraction and consumption, large-scale agriculture, and deforestation. And we need to do it in a way that builds a strong and equitable economy, not one that creates big winners but leaves billions of people behind. One useful way to bucket this enormous task:

Switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Close to one-third of human emissions come from electricity and heat generation. Available (and ever more cost-efficient) technologies like solar panels and wind turbines can produce our electricity without emissions, and promising solutions like hydrogen fuel cells are on the horizon. At the same time, halting new fossil fuel exploration, extraction, and production must be an explicit goal. It doesn’t matter how much renewable energy we produce if the oil and gas industry proceeds with plans to lock in and burn new resources.

Electrify our infrastructure. Clean electricity isn’t much use if our economy still runs on fossil fuels. The fastest path is to electrify. Road transportation accounts for close to 12% of human emissions; we can replace gas-powered cars and trucks with electric vehicles. Electric heat pumps can replace natural gas heating and cooling in residential and commercial buildings. Not everything lends itself easily to electrification -- manufacturing, for example – and there are some real concerns about how current battery storage materials are sourced, so innovation and new technologies are needed.

Fix land use. Large-scale agriculture, deforestation, and other land-use changes produce close to one-fourth of emissions, and often accelerate the negative impacts of climate change. At the same time, forests (as well as soil) are potent carbon “sinks”, absorbing and capturing CO2 from the atmosphere. Curbing deforestation and forest degradation have the biggest potential, but we need an array of solutions to feed the world while reducing emissions.

Adapt to the inevitable. While mitigating the causes of climate change is essential, many governments, companies, and organizations are inventing and promoting measures to adapt to the inevitable short- to medium-term consequences of climate change, such as increased wildfires, flooding, and sea level rise.

Make it equitable. We must make equity an explicit pillar of our new climate future. With people closest to the problem as leaders, we can ensure that all people have the opportunity to benefit from climate solutions while not taking on an unequal burden of climate impacts.

Our Focus

Figuring out HOW to achieve these goals is, of course, the hard part. The universe of solutions is vast, and it’s going to take some combination of all of them to succeed. In this theme, we’ll focus less on specific solutions and more on three “levers” for achieving timely, large-scale Climate Action.


Better Rules. Government policymakers have the power to create laws that limit emissions, propel innovation, adapt to climate impacts, and facilitate the shift from an extractive to a regenerative economy.	Market Action. Corporations, and the institutions that invest in and insure them, can pursue policies and practices that stop or reduce climate damage while still maintaining their bottom lines.	People Power. Activists and community leaders are demanding a sustainable future, reimagining what’s possible, and working to ensure that people most affected by the transition are not left behind.

What will it take to create a sustainable and equitable climate future?

Why This Matters

What’s Equity Got to Do with It?

How Do We Fix It?

Our Focus