Take Action

Climate change affects us all. Here are tips on how you can personally make a difference.

Low Carbon Living: At Home —  Remember to reduce, recycle, reuse! Buy minimally packaged goods. Recycle paper, plastic, glass, and metal. Reuse, mend, and repurpose things to save money and divert waste from your local landfill.

Plug air leaks in windows and doors to increase energy efficiency. Adjust your thermostat, lower in winter, higher in summer. Replace old appliances with energy efficient models and light bulbs with CFLs or LED types that use a fraction of the energy! Save electricity by plugging appliances into a power strip and turning them off completely when not in use. Wash clothes in cold or warm water. Run dishwashers only when full and don’t use heat to dry dishes. Eat less meat, poultry, and fish. Additional tips on how to kick the CO2 habit

Low Carbon Living: At Work and On the Go — Businesses are increasingly recognizing the risks and opportunities that climate change presents and the important part they must play to create sustainable societies and markets. Opportunities for cost savings through improved efficiencies abound at work. For instance, consider printing double-sided or not at all and always using reusable cups, knives and forks.  Think before you travel. If a video conference call will suffice, spare the hassle and expense, and CO2 emissions.  Avoid traffic jams and decrease your personal carbon foot print by walking, bicycling, and using mass transit whenever possible. Consider carpooling with friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Taking the stairs can sometimes be faster than waiting in long elevator lines. In addition to saving energy, taking the stairs gives you a mild workout which will help keep you healthy. For additional tips on how to kick the CO2 habit click here

Have your business join the UN Global Compact and become part of the solution for two of today’s largest scale environmental issues – Climate Change and Water Sustainability.

Know Your Carbon Footprint —  Find out how much CO2 your lifestyle produces and the amount of resources it takes to live the way you do. Once you know the impact your lifestyle causes you can start to make adjustments and monitor improvement. Encourage others to do the same. Create a friendly competition with friends and family to achieve a low impact lifestyle! Calculate CO2 emissions resulting from your air travel
 

Plant Trees — Apart from their intrinsic beauty, trees provide welcome shade, habitats for animals and plants, as well as capture and store CO2 emissions. In addition, more than a billion people globally rely on forests to provide their livelihood. Join UNEPs effort to plant at least one billion trees worldwide each year! Enter tree planting pledges online, then plant indigenous or locally appropriate tree where you live. View results of tree planting efforts globally

Learn More — Knowledge is power. Use this website to:
Learn about the Science behind climate change
Learn about: Mitigation ,  Adaptation , Technology , and Financing
Watch videos about the effects of climate change
Read important documents, reports, and climate change conventions such as the IPCC report, the UNDP Human Development Report, and national reports.
Follow the latest climate negotiations

Events

INTERNATIONAL AWARENESS RAISING CONTEST FOR SHORT-LIVED CLIMATE POLLUTANTS

Excited about social media, audiovisual products and getting creative for a global cause?

The Climate and Clean Air Coalition is holding an international contest to find the perfect outreach toolkit to get the word out about short-lived climate pollutants – SLCPs – using a range of traditional and new methods. The best submissions from each category will be posted on the Climate and Clean Air Coalition website, and used in a range of Coalition outreach and awareness-raising efforts.

Read more and submit your entry here.