Climate change, seen by storm chasers as
an urgent threat to millions of lives, has become the
most serious threat to life.
But climatologists agree there are solutions
and they are well understood.
In 2015, world leaders signed a major treaty
called the Paris agreement to put these into practice.
Core to all the solutions is reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which must get to zero fastest.
Because both forests and oceans play vitally important roles in regulating the climate, increasing
the natural ability of forests and oceans to absorb carbon dioxide can also help stop global warming, weather experts say.
The main ways to stop climate change are to
pressure government and business to:
Keep fossil fuels in the ground. Fossil fuels
include coal, oil and gas -– and the more that are extracted and burned, the worse climate change will get.
Invest in renewable energy: Changing our
main energy sources to clean and renewable energy
is the best way to stop using fossil fuels.
These include technologies like solar, wind,
wave, tidal and geothermal power.
Switch to sustainable transport: Gasoline and
diesel vehicles, planes and ships use fossil fuels. Reducing car use, switching to electric vehicles and minimizing
plane travel will not only help stop climate change, it will
reduce air pollution too.
Improve farming and encourage vegan diets:
One of the best ways for individuals to help stop climate
change is by reducing their meat and dairy consumption,
or by going fully vegan.
Restore nature to absorb more carbon: The
natural world is very good at cleaning up our emissions,
but we need to look after it. Planting trees in the right
places or giving land back to nature through ‘rewilding’
schemes is a good starter.
Protect forests: Forests are crucial in the fight
against climate change, and protecting them is an important climate solution.
Cutting down forests on an industrial scale
destroys giant trees which could be sucking up huge
amounts of carbon.
Protect the oceans: Oceans also absorb
large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,
which helps to keep our climate stable.
But many are overfished, used for oil and gas
drilling or threatened by deep sea mining.
Reduce plastic: Plastic is made from oil, and
the process of extracting, refining and turning oil into
plastic (or even polyester, for clothing) is surprisingly
carbon-intense.
Demand for plastic is rising so quickly that
creating and disposing of plastics will account for 17
percent of the global carbon budget by 2050 (this is
the emissions count we need to stay within according
to the Paris agreement).
What is the Paris Climate Agreement, and
why does it matter?
Everything you need to know about the
world’s most important climate change treaty
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, and feel climate change is too big to solve.
But we have the answers; now it’s a question
of making them happen.
All these solutions need strong international cooperation between governments and businesses, including
the biggest polluters.
