Climate Change
Since the mid-1800s, humans have contributed to the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the air. This causes global temperatures to rise, resulting in long-term changes to the climate.
Carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping greenhouse gas that has driven recent global warming, lingers in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, and the planet (especially the oceans) takes a while to respond to warming. So even if we stopped emitting all greenhouse gases today, global warming and climate change will be around for decades, even centuries, to come continuing to affect future generations.
The reality of Climate Change is gaining widespread acceptance (but not universal) and world leaders; civil society; governments, international bodies; NGOs and the private sector are developing and implementing solutions to address this vital issue.
Solutions can be categorised as either mitigation or adaptation. Mitigation addresses the root causes, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while adaptation seeks to lower the risks posed by the consequences of climatic changes. Both approaches are essential, because even if emissions are dramatically decreased in the next decade, adaptation will still be needed to deal with the global changes that have already been set in
motion.
According to the 2014 report on Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, governments are putting in place plans for adaptation. Climate change is starting to be factored into a variety of development plans: how to manage the increasingly extreme disasters we are seeing and their associated risks, how to protect coastlines and deal with sea-level encroachment, how to best manage land and forests, how to deal with and plan for reduced water availability, how to develop resilient crop varieties and how to protect energy and public infrastructure.
However, not all countries have the resources and capacity to put in place Adaptation measures as they need to.
Responding to climate change requires both approaches: Mitigation: -reducing and stabilizing the levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and Adaptation being ready for, and building resilience to, the inevitable climate changes the world will inevitably face.
Startle works with partners to support the most vulnerable and poorest; where the impact of climate change will have a disproportionately adverse effect; and where interventions can have the most significant impact.