Stabilizing Climate

When climate change is in the news, it is rarely talked about positively. Record-shattering droughts are leading to massive wildfires and battles over freshwater resources. Intense hurricanes and storms rampage coastlines and communities. Shifting and unreliable weather patterns are making farming and living more difficult for communities across the planet.
Underneath, they are the same story. Climate change is affecting the way we live. But the solution is clear: reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Every day is an opportunity to slow climate change and preserve life on Earth. Thankfully, the world is finally awakening to the urgency of this global issue. This new consciousness means that all of us – governments, industries, businesses, and individuals – have the opportunity to incorporate responsible environmental choices into the way we govern, build, design, buy, vote, and live. We need everyone to do their part.
There are ways to make an immediate impact. One significant way to mitigate climate change is to protect and restore forests, and we’re hard at work doing both. Burning and clearing forests contributes over one-fifth of total global greenhouse gas emissions – more than the emissions of all of the world’s cars, trucks, trains, and planes combined. In the Makira rain forest in Madagascar we have worked in conjunction with our partners to prevent more than 8 million tons of CO2 from entering our atmosphere. That’s equal to taking 145,000 cars off the road for 10 years. CI now has more than a dozen similar projects planned or underway around the world, all of which aim to find sustainable models for protecting biodiversity – models that also provide for human welfare.
And when it comes to the oceans, which absorb one-third of the carbon emitted into the atmosphere by fossil fuel, new studies are showing potential negative effects to corals and the species they support if the oceans continue to warm. In places like Madagascar and the Galapagos, we are studying the effects of climate on marine species and how these changes are impacting local communities that depend on healthy marine resources.
Climate change is tearing healthy ecosystems apart on land and in our oceans. Protecting these ecosystems is core to what we have done for more than 20 years. Together with our partners we are developing innovative global solutions that will help people and nature adapt to Earth's changing climate.