Question 1

What is the difference between climate mitigation and adaptation?

Accepted Answer

**Mitigation** reduces the cause. **Adaptation** reduces the harm. Both are necessary, and treating them as alternatives is a mistake that has cost real time.

**Mitigation** means limiting climate change itself — cutting greenhouse gas emissions and increasing removals. Renewable energy, electrification, efficiency, changing land use, reducing methane, carbon capture. Its effects are **global and delayed**: a tonne of CO₂ avoided anywhere benefits everywhere, and the temperature benefit accrues over decades.

**Adaptation** means adjusting to the changes already happening or now unavoidable. Flood defences, drought-resistant crops, cooling in buildings, early warning systems, moving infrastructure, restoring wetlands and mangroves as natural buffers, redesigning drainage. Its effects are **local and relatively immediate**: a sea wall protects one place, fairly soon.

**Why both are required.** Enough warming is already committed from historical emissions that adaptation is unavoidable regardless of what happens next — the impacts arriving now result from emissions decades ago. Equally, adaptation has limits: beyond certain thresholds some systems cannot be adapted to, and the cost rises non-linearly. Mitigation determines how much adaptation will eventually be needed.

**Why the framing became politically charged.** For years, raising adaptation was treated in some quarters as conceding defeat or as a distraction from cutting emissions. That objection has largely faded as impacts became visible, and the IPCC now treats both as essential, alongside a third concept — **loss and damage**, covering harms that can be neither prevented nor adapted to, which is contentious because it concerns who pays.

**Maladaptation** is a real risk: responses that reduce harm now while increasing vulnerability later. Air conditioning powered by fossil fuels, sea walls that encourage building in exposed places, and groundwater irrigation that depletes aquifers are standard examples.

**The best measures do both** — tree planting in cities, wetland restoration, and better-insulated buildings all cut emissions and reduce exposure.

Question 2

What are the main causes of climate change and how do they affect the environment?

Accepted Answer

Climate change is caused by human activities like burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and agriculture, leading to rising temperatures, extreme weather, and ocean acidification.

Question 3

What are ecosystem services?

Accepted Answer

The benefits people obtain from ecosystems — a framework for making nature's contribution visible in decisions that would otherwise treat it as worth nothing. The four categories, from the Millennium

Question 4

What is the social cost of carbon?

Accepted Answer

An estimate, in money, of the damage caused by emitting one additional tonne of carbon dioxide — used to put climate effects into cost-benefit analysis of policies and projects. Why it exists.

Question 5

How to reduce deforestation impact?

Accepted Answer

Reducing deforestation impact involves supporting sustainable practices, engaging in reforestation, and advocating for policy changes. Each method contributes to forest preservation and biodiversity.

Question 6

How can I reduce my carbon footprint in daily life?

Accepted Answer

To reduce your carbon footprint, consider using public transport, adopting energy-efficient appliances, reducing meat consumption, and recycling. Small changes can lead to significant environmental benefits.

Question 7

How much of climate change comes from food and farming?

Accepted Answer

Roughly a quarter to a third of global greenhouse gas emissions depending on what is counted — and the distinctive feature is that these emissions are mostly not carbon dioxide from burning fuel,

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