What can I do about climate change?
Some years ago, people might have required a stronger grasp of how science works to fully understand what it meant, when we said that the scientific consensus pointed to humans as the primary drivers of climate change on Earth.
We needed to comprehend why achieving scientific consensus in any field is so challenging and, more importantly, how scientists arrived at the conclusion that their data supported this claim beyond any doubt.
Nowadays, all we need to do is glance at the headlines or look out our windows. From devastating wildfires and hurricanes to huge mud floods—or even the noticeable shifts in winter and summer temperatures—climate change is no longer an abstract idea; it is here, unfolding before our eyes.
Hi, this is Climate Resilience with Cinthia and together, we’ll explore evidence-based information to face climate change.
For those of us who pay closer attention, 2024 was the first calendar year in which the global average temperature exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This milestone was confirmed by multiple climate monitoring organizations, including the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Just to be clear, despite the fact that the world reached this milestone. The Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels refers to long-term averages, typically measured over 20-30 years, rather than individual years.
Personally, I disagree with considering 20 or 30 years as a condition to be fulfilled for 20 or 30 years is reasonable… if we wait that long to do anything, the measurement itself could be rather useless…
Either way, lots of us are aware of the potential and scary future consequences of climate change and that makes us wonder what we need to do about it.
There seems to be a dichotomy between the individual actions and the systemic change required… and lots of people seem to move between two strong points of view:
Either we, as individuals, can’t do anything… because this is a problem the rich corporations should solve…
or, we should all feel guilty for not doing enough.
Let’s untangle this with data.
My personal carbon footprint
You have probably already tried to assess your personal carbon footprint at some point with any of the many online calculators available for this.
The carbon footprint concept developed from an environmental management methodology called “life cycle assessment”. This was one of the first ways to measure the impact of a product or system over its entire lifetime. Companies like Coca-Cola initially developed such tools in the 1970s to help cut energy use during the energy crisis. Although the term “carbon footprint” specifically first appeared in a BBC vegetarian food magazine in 1999.
And it was until 2005, that fossil fuel company BP popularized the idea of a carbon footprint for individuals. The campaign instructed people to calculate their personal footprints and provided ways for people to “go on a low-carbon diet”.
And the first reason why lots of people criticize the metric is because they “feel” this is a way of BP and other companies to disregard their own responsibility by shaming individuals into making THEM responsible for their own CO2 release.
The calculators vary somewhat because they cannot account for all variables. For instance, one of the calculators assumes I live in the UK and penalizes me for not having a heat-insulated house. However, I live in Latin America, where my house is not heat-insulated, but I also never heat it during winter. It makes no sense for the calculator to assume otherwise.
I think this other calculator probably tells a more reasonable story although some of the questions only allow me to give estimates. And as you can see, the variation of the estimated carbon footprint is very different among both tools.
Corporations and their carbon footprint
On the other hand, you may have probably come across this kind of headlines: where it clearly states that 32 companies are to be blamed for half of the whole planet’s carbon emissions.
And you can even see which companies are to blame the most: energy companies from Saudi Arabia, India, China…
You can even go further to the source and check historically, which companies have been the major contributors… you will notice BP listed, among others.
So, individuals or corporations, who is it to blame?
Well, both of us!
The average carbon footprint per capita in the US in 2023 was 13.83 metric tons, which is higher than my supposedly calculated personal footprint.
Presumably in 2024 there were 343 million people in the US… hence, we’re talking about 4.75 billion metric tons of CO2 by humans in the US alone.
4 752 035 077 metric tons of CO2
Now, if we compare that number against this table which estimates carbon dioxide emissions only in 2023, well… humans, only in the US, do account for more emissions than the highest listed company there.
And of course, these energy companies…well, they are there polluting because what they sell is bought by someone… so, yes… we are ALL collectively involved either way.
This of course takes us back to the original question:
What can I do about climate change?
To be fair, people in different parts of the world contribute to this problem in varying proportions. But we are talking about 8 billion people in the whole world.
If every year, each one of us could avoid releasing 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide, we would be preventing 8 billion metric tons, which again would be more than the worst offender on this list.
Should we ALL stop our lives to avoid carbon emissions? absolutely not…
Can a single one of us solve this problem? absolutely not.
But yes… all of us, together, can do SOMETHING about it. And yes, all of us together could do even more than some of the largest corporations.
As we discussed in a previous video, you can start by not wasting resources on idle chat GPT questions, or not creating Gibhli style images with it.
If you can’t use public transportation or a bike, try sharing your car at least once in a while.
Reduce your meat consumption, even if you just cut your meat consumption once a week, it counts.
If you can install solar panels at home, do it. If you can only install solar binders in your windows, do it. If you can only do one little thing every now and then, do it…
Not everyone can afford to make changes, but if you can… go for them. In the next videos we’ll try to discuss further ways of making our contribution to this cause.
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References
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Climate Change Indicators: U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions | US EPA. (2025, March 26). US EPA. Retrieved March 30, 2025, from https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions
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Copernicus: 2024 is the first year to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial level. (2025, January 21). https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/en/news-archive/copernicus-2024-is-the-first-year-to-exceed-1-5degc-above-pre-industrial-level
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McManus, M. (2022, May 27). The ‘carbon footprint’ was co-opted by fossil fuel companies to shift climate blame – here’s how it can serve us again. The Conversation. Retrieved March 30, 2025, from https://theconversation.com/the-carbon-footprint-was-co-opted-by-fossil-fuel-companies-to-shift-climate-blame-heres-how-it-can-serve-us-again-183566
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