It’s time to take urgent climate change action!
We’ve got literally hundreds of ideas to help you make a difference at work & at home, and to make companies & governments take responsibility for the climate crisis.
- Check out our Top Ten Climate Change Actions if you want to make a big impact, quickly
- We’ve got hundreds of green ideas you can use at home or in your community
- Massively multiply your impact with our sustainable actions you can do at work
- Find out how you can make companies and governments take responsibility for the climate crisis
- Or dive into the detail and reduce your energy use, use your money for good, change your diet to be more sustainable, and more.
“It is still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C, and avoid the very worst of climate change. But only with dramatic, immediate climate action.” António Guterres, UN secretary-general (July 2023 – on track to be the world’s hottest month on record).[1]
Evidence-based climate change action
The science of climate change is established fact [2, 3], but fixing the problem is complicated.
Ultimately, the climate crisis has been caused by billions of people, millions of companies, and hundreds of governments making what we now know to be bad choices over many decades. It follows that the crisis can only be fixed by undoing those bad choices and their effects.
We know there’s a lot of misinformation out there, so wherever possible, we’ve cited our sources for the statements we’ve made, linked to the evidence, and based our actions on that evidence or advice from reputable sources.
Some of the actions we need to take seem very small in the face of such a huge problem, leading some people to claim that individual action is pointless and even unfair. (That’s usually based on assertions that China isn’t taking any action, or based on a study that shows that just 100 companies have caused 71% of global emissions since 1988.[4])
We can see where they’re coming from, but we disagree that individual action is pointless because countries and companies don’t operate in a vacuum. They do business and create pollution because there is demand for their products, whether that’s physical goods or the raw materials and power that’s used to create and transport them. (We also disagree because if everyone just gives up and carries on doing what they’re currently doing, we’re all screwed.)
So, we need to change the products that we, as business customers, individual consumers and public bodies, are demanding. Governmental organisations, companies and individuals need to use less energy and consume fewer resources.
But most companies won’t change on their own, and while the public is coming around to the need for change, it won’t happen quickly enough at scale. So, we also need decisive action from government and policymakers on an international level – like when the world collectively banned ozone-destroying CFCs in the 1980s and 90s.
So what can I do to fix the climate crisis?
Companies and governments need to take action, but unfortunately, “a company” or “a government” can’t read this and decide to take action on its own. All we can do, as individuals concerned about the climate crisis, is take action as individuals. But we’re not just talking about the actions you take at home as a private citizen – that’s not enough.
- We’re talking about the actions you take at work – like making your company’s products and processes more sustainable.
- We’re talking about influencing politicians – so they understand that voters care about green issues and start implementing sustainable policies.
- We’re talking about taking part in activism – raising the profile of the green movement by going to protests and starting effective community projects.
- And we’re talking about using your vote to get better people in power at local and national levels (international levels too, if you live in the EU).
These are individual actions, but they make it easier for millions of other people to make sustainable choices (whether they want to or not).
And when billions of people, millions of companies and hundreds of governments start making better choices, it adds up to real, sustainable change.
The Big Green Ideas List, February 2023
Citations:
[1]Niranjan, A. (2023) ‘era of global boiling has arrived,’ says UN chief as July set to be hottest month on record, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/27/scientists-july-world-hottest-month-record-climate-temperatures (Accessed: 27 July 2023).
[2] Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change … – iopscience (2021) IOP Science. IOP Publishing Ltd. Available at: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966 (Accessed: March 6, 2023).
[3] Scientific consensus: Earth’s climate is warming (2023) NASA. NASA. Available at: https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ (Accessed: March 6, 2023).
[4] New report shows just 100 companies are source of over 70% of emissions (2017) CDP. CDP. Available at: https://www.cdp.net/en/articles/media/new-report-shows-just-100-companies-are-source-of-over-70-of-emissions (Accessed: March 6, 2023).
Image credits:
Climate change graphic: the header image used throughout the site is adapted from the well-known average temperature graphic created by Ed Hawkins of the University of Reading. The graphic shows global temperature changes between 1850 and 2021 (relative to the 1971 to 2000 average). Blue stripes show that the global average temperature was below the average in that year. The red stripes, representing recent decades, indicate increasing temperatures above the average.
The green stripes on the far right, which we added, represent hope for the future if action is taken now. They’re not meant to be statistically accurate – they’re a fanciful representation of hope. The original image is used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Available from: https://showyourstripes.info/c/globe
Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
Pizza – Sahand Hoseini on Unsplash
Graphs on a laptop – Campaign Creators on Unsplash
Wind turbines at sea – Nicholas Doherty on Unsplash
Beekeeper in a meadow – Bee Naturalles on Unsplash
Woman using social media on phone – Georgia de Lotz on Unsplash
Tropical island partially underwater – photo by Ishan @seefromthesky on Unsplash
Woman leading brainstorming session at work – photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash
Extinction Rebellion protest – photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash