What's the best climate action you can take?

The guide argues against one-size-fits-all climate action lists, instead encouraging individuals to audit their own habits in four key areas: diet, electricity use, travel, and home temperature regulation. It highlights the environmental impact of agriculture, fossil-fuel electricity, and transportation, offering specific practical steps—such as shifting to plant-rich diets, upgrading to LED bulbs, and reducing air travel—to lower personal greenhouse gas emissions.

• Agriculture has a significant environmental footprint, utilizing approximately 37% of global land and 70% of freshwater, while contributing between 25% and 33% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Food waste is a major climate driver, with 30-40% of global food production never being consumed; this results in wasted embedded carbon and the release of methane from landfills.
• Electricity generation from coal and natural gas is responsible for roughly 20-25% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which can be mitigated through efficiency measures like using LED bulbs, which use about 75% less energy than incandescent ones.
• Individual transportation and home heating/cooling are often the largest sources of direct emissions; recommended reductions include biking, walking, using heat pumps instead of inefficient AC, and weatherizing homes.

APA

Foley, J. (2024). What's the best climate action you can take? Project Drawdown. https://drawdown.org/insights/whats-the-best-climate-action-you-can-take-you-tell-me

Chicago

Foley, Jonathan. What's the best climate action you can take? Project Drawdown, 2024. https://drawdown.org/insights/whats-the-best-climate-action-you-can-take-you-tell-me.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Foley |first1=Jonathan |title=What's the best climate action you can take? |publisher=Project Drawdown |date=6 May 2024 |url=https://drawdown.org/insights/whats-the-best-climate-action-you-can-take-you-tell-me |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{foley2024whats, author = {Foley, Jonathan}, title = {{What's the best climate action you can take?}}, institution = {Project Drawdown}, year = {2024}, month = may, url = {https://drawdown.org/insights/whats-the-best-climate-action-you-can-take-you-tell-me}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }