Many governments and companies around the world are actively trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in an effort to reduce man-made global warming.
Climate change mitigation, takes two forms: reducing emissions resulting from human activity; or increasing the capacity of carbon sinks (e.g. through reforestation).
According to science, mitigation efforts can substantially reduce the risks associated with human-induced global warming.
Mitigation efforts include phasing out the use of fossil fuels in energy generation and transport, by switching to clean energy sources, such as renewable and nuclear energy, and protecting and expanding forests and other carbon sinks to remove greater amounts of CO2.
With land use thought to be responsible for over a quarter of global GHGs, innovation in agricultural practices and technologies and returning land to forests can also play a major role in climate change mitigation.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is a framework for countries to stabilise atmospheric concentrations of GHGs at a level that would prevent dangerous climate change.
The Paris Agreement on climate change of 2015 was a key turning point in climate action, setting a long-term temperature goal of holding the global average temperature increase to below 2°C, and pursuing efforts to limit this to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.