Did you watch the Countdown? Have you heard of Net-Zero? How about the Project Drawdown? The list could go on and on. I am not an expert on climate change, but I wish to turn your attention to. This blog rather theoretical is an excerpt of various reference materials focused on climate change initiatives around the world.
The climate change is the biggest threat we face. When we look at our ancestors, we realize how extraordinary planet earth was. In the last few decades, we see a radical change in our relationship to earth. More importantly our economic activities and use of resources has grown enormously. In fact, we’ve seen an incredible explosion of the human footprint within the last 50 years alone. Specifically, our population has grown, as has our activities, which has resulted in an increase of demand. Unfortunately, the share of fossil fuels has also increased, which is harmful to the rest of life on earth. Earth's climate is beginning to change because we're changing what's making up the atmosphere. But let’s not be hopeless. Turn inaction or reaction to action and prevention. We all can plant trees, eat less meat and so much more. Below, you’ll find several initiatives and references to learn about. They are all concerned about food, water, air quality, health and security and even economy. However, they realized that climate change binds it all together.
Project Drawdown
Founded in 2014, Project Drawdown is a nonprofit organization that seeks to help the world reach “Drawdown” the future point in time when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline. This is the point when we begin the process of stopping further climate change and averting potentially catastrophic warming. It is a critical turning point for life on earth, one we must reach as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible. In 2017, Project Drawdown released its inaugural body of work on climate solutions with the publication of the best-selling book Drawdown and open-source digital resources on Drawdown.org. Project Drawdown conducts an ongoing review and analysis of climate solutions, the practices and technologies that can stem and begin to reduce the excess of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere to provide the world with a current and robust resource.
Burning fossil fuels for electricity, mobility, and heat. Manufacturing cement and steel. Plowing soils. Clearing forests and degrading other ecosystems. All these activities emit heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air. Cattle, rice fields, landfills, and fossil fuel operations release methane, a gas that warms the planet even more. Nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases seep out of agricultural lands, industrial sites, refrigeration systems, and urban areas, adding still more heat-trapping pollutants to earth’s atmosphere. Most of these greenhouse gases stay airborne, but not all. Natural biological and chemical processes specially photosynthesis bring some of that excess back to plants, soil, or sea. These “sinks” are nature’s reservoirs for absorbing and storing carbon.
To reach Drawdown, we must work on all aspects of the climate equation stopping sources and supporting sinks, as well as helping society achieve broader transformations. That is, three connected areas call for action, which we must pursue globally, simultaneously, and with determination.
For more information, please visit https://drawdown.org/
The Exponential Roadmap
The 2019 Exponential Roadmap focuses on moving from incremental to exponential climate action in the next decade. It presents 36 economically viable solutions to cut global greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2030 and the strategies to scale this transformation. The roadmap is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s goal to keep global average temperature “well below 2°C” and aiming for 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The solutions must scale exponentially. The roadmap identifies four pillars required to scale the transformation as well as necessary actions for each: policy, climate leadership and movements, finance and exponential technology. Implementation must be fair and just or risk deep resistance.
Exponential Roadmap: 36 solutions to cut greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2030
For more information, please visit https://exponentialroadmap.org/
Global warming of 1.5°C
An IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty. The special report consists of the following chapters:
Human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8°C to 1.2°C. Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate. Limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared to 2°C is projected to reduce increases in ocean temperature as well as associated increases in ocean acidity and decreases in ocean oxygen levels. Consequently, limiting global warming to 1.5°C is projected to reduce risks to marine biodiversity, fisheries, and ecosystems, and their functions and services to humans. Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming of 1.5°C and increase further with 2°C. Limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels would require transformative systemic change, integrated with sustainable development. Such change would require the upscaling and acceleration of the implementation of far-reaching, multilevel and cross-sectoral climate mitigation and addressing barriers. Such systemic change would need to be linked to complementary adaptation actions, including transformational adaptation, especially for pathways that temporarily overshoot 1.5°C.
For more information, please visit https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
Mission Possible
Reaching net-zero carbon emissions from harder-to-abate sectors by mid-century outlines the possible routes to fully decarbonize cement, steel, plastics, trucking, shipping and aviation, which together represent 30% of energy emissions today and could increase to 60% by mid-century as other sectors lower their emissions.
For more information, please visit https://www.energy-transitions.org/
The Ambition Loop
It’s about how business and government can advance policies that fast track zero-carbon economic growth. With hundreds of businesses pursuing bold climate change solutions, and leading countries updating national climate plans, the opportunity for greater ambition abounds. To outpace the most damaging and disruptive effects of climate change, countries and companies must establish targets and policies that enable each other to go further and faster. They must push each other to accelerate the pace and scale of innovation and investments in low-carbon solutions. That requires a positive feedback loop, an “ambition loop” between bold business leadership and bold government policies.
These leaders are poised to go further and faster with policies that:
1. ADD CLARITY with specific or streamlined rules and timelines, and accessible, consistent information and enforcement mechanisms
2. BUILD CONFIDENCE with strong market signals, regulatory certainty, firm long-term strategies, predictability, and supportive infrastructure investments.
For more information, please visit https://ambitionloop.org/
What happen when we stop
It’s a beautiful and free digital book for parents on how and when to talk to young children about climate change.
For more information, please visit https://whathappenedwhenweallstopped.com/