Making a difference
Solutions
The most important challenge we face today is to stop climate change getting worse.
The ball is now in our court
There is a lot we can – and must – do to make our world less energy-consuming and more climate-friendly. This means finding solutions that help us cut greenhouse gas emissions.
As well as being good for the planet, it is also good for our health (less pollution), the security of our energy supplies and the economy, as it creates new jobs.
Solutions already on the way
Sorting the science
Every six or seven years, an important scientific body called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases a report on scientific evidence on climate change. The world’s most influential and respected climate scientists contribute to this.
They assess tens of thousands of scientific papers to update the world on the state of the climate plus options to tackle global warming and the changes it brings.
The IPCC’s latest Assessment Report (AR5), published in 2018, involved hundreds of authors and editors from more than 90 countries. It outlines future impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emissions pathways.
However, it also says that it is not too late to prevent dangerous climate change, but the world must act fast to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Changing with the climate
Whether we like it or not, climate change is a part of our lives.
Even if we could eliminate all our emissions tomorrow, the planet would still have to recover from the greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere. This means we need to adapt to the changes happening now and plan for the future to prevent or limit the damage that climate change can cause.
The European Green Deal
Launched in 2019, the European Green Deal is our plan to make the EU climate-neutral by 2050. We want to transform the EU into a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy, ensuring no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, decoupling economic growth from resource use, all while leaving no person and no place behind.
In 2021, the European Commission adopted a package of even more ambitious proposals to make the EU's climate, energy, land use, transport and taxation policies fit for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.
Ask the scientist
