Glossary term
Climate Mitigation
Subject: Sustainability and ESG, Climate Risk
Also known as: Mitigation of climate change, Emissions reduction
Climate mitigation means cutting greenhouse gas emissions or removing them from the atmosphere, so that global warming is slowed and limited.
Explanation
Mitigation works on the cause of climate change. Typical actions are using less energy, switching from fossil fuels to renewables, electrifying transport and heating, changing industrial processes, protecting forests and capturing carbon. Policymakers pursue it through carbon pricing, standards and subsidies, and countries set national goals under the Paris Agreement. Companies pursue it through targets, transition plans and capital spending. Mitigation helps everyone, wherever the cut takes place, which is why it is often a collective action problem. It is paired with adaptation, because some warming is already locked in. Banks and investors meet the term in taxonomy rules, which define which activities count as contributing to mitigation. The pace of cuts decides how severe the physical and transition risks become for everyone else.
Example
A logistics company replaces 40% of its diesel delivery vans with electric ones, signs a contract for renewable power at its depots and routes drivers with software that cuts idle time. Together these measures lower its direct and purchased-energy emissions by about a quarter. It records the results against its published reduction target.
Not to be confused with
- Climate Adaptation
- Adaptation reduces harm from climate impacts. Mitigation reduces the emissions that cause them.