Compiled by Obiabin Onukwugha
Climate change mitigation involves actions to reduce or prevent greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.
Mitigation efforts include transitioning to renewable energy sources, enhancing energy efficiency, adopting regenerative agricultural practices and protecting and restoring forests and critical ecosystems.
Effective mitigation requires a whole-of-society approach and structural transformations to reduce emissions and limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
International cooperation, for example through the Paris Agreement, is crucial in guiding and achieving global and national mitigation goals.
Mitigation efforts face challenges such as the world’s deep-rooted dependency on fossil fuels, the increased demand for new mineral resources and the difficulties in revamping our food systems.
These challenges also offer opportunities to improve resilience and contribute to sustainable development.
If we can slow down the rise in greenhouse gases, we can slow down the pace of climate change and avoid its worst consequences.
Reducing greenhouse gases can be achieved by:
Shifting away from fossil fuels: Fossil fuels are the biggest source of greenhouse gases, so transitioning to modern renewable energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal power, and advancing sustainable modes of transportation, is crucial.
Improving energy efficiency: Using less energy overall – in buildings, industries, public and private spaces, energy generation and transmission, and transportation – helps reduce emissions. This can be achieved by using thermal comfort standards, better insulation and energy efficient appliances, and by improving building design, energy transmission systems and vehicles.
Changing agricultural practices: Certain farming methods release high amounts of methane and nitrous oxide, which are potent greenhouse gases. Regenerative agricultural practices – including enhancing soil health, reducing livestock-related emissions, direct seeding techniques and using cover crops – support mitigation, improve resilience and decrease the cost burden on farmers.
The sustainable management and conservation of forests: Forests act as carbon sinks, absorbing carbon dioxide and reducing the overall concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Measures to reduce deforestation and forest degradation are key for climate mitigation and generate multiple additional benefits such as biodiversity conservation and improved water cycles.
Restoring and conserving critical ecosystems: In addition to forests, ecosystems such as wetlands, peatlands, and grasslands, as well as coastal biomes such as mangrove forests, also contribute significantly to carbon sequestration, while supporting biodiversity and enhancing climate resilience.
Creating a supportive environment: Investments, policies and regulations that encourage emission reductions, such as incentives, carbon pricing and limits on emissions from key sectors are crucial to driving climate change mitigation.
Importance of forests to combating climate change
Forests are carbon sinks; they cycle damaging carbon out of the atmosphere and transform it into biomass through photosynthesis. This slows the impact of climate change.
Healthy functioning forests help to absorb rainwater and slow its aboveground movement, which is crucial to preserving soil integrity, protecting water water quality, and reducing flood intensity.
Trees play a crucial role in mitigating climate change by acting as significant carbon sinks, absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, effectively storing it within their biomass, which helps to slow down global warming; therefore, protecting and planting trees is a vital strategy to combat climate change.
Large forests act as vast carbon sinks, holding immense amounts of stored carbon, helping to regulate atmospheric CO2 levels.
Trees are nature’s primary carbon capture mechanism, absorbing CO2 from the air and storing it in their trunks, branches, and leaves, effectively removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Planting new trees (afforestation) and restoring degraded forest areas (reforestation) are key strategies to increase the planet’s carbon absorption capacity.