Climate change is already affecting our lives and the places we live, and has the potential to dramatically impact the lives of future generations.

The Nature Conservancy is joining with policy makers, community members, businesses, scientists, industry leaders and others to slow the pace of climate change. We work to reduce the accumulation of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere and help natural areas adjust to the impacts of climate change.

If we don’t act now, we will leave a much larger problem to our children. The good news is that, if we all join in to stop climate change, we can reduce its impact on our lives, on our environment and on future generations.

What You Can Do To Help

You can make a difference! There are many simple things that you can do today to help stop climate change:

• Get the facts about climate change
• Discover helpful tips for reducing your personal carbon emissions
• Test your knowledge with our climate change quiz

What The Nature Conservancy is Doing

The Nature Conservancy is addressing climate change by:

• Reducing emissions from deforestation
• Helping natural areas adapt to the impacts of climate change
• Supporting policies to reduce emissions

Supporting Policy Solutions in the Unites States and Around the World

The Conservancy is calling for federal legislation in the United States that will:

• Reduce carbon dioxide emissions using a mandatory national cap-and trade program for greenhouse gases with strong emission caps that achieve at least an 80 percent reduction in U.S. emissions by 2050, to stabilize greenhouse gases at levels that will protect biodiversity and limit climate change.

• Provide incentives to reduce emissions from deforestation and land use change and sequester additional emissions by restoring forests. This should include both market and non-market components to support international and domestic forest carbon efforts.

• Establish funding for natural adaptation strategies, both in the U.S. and in developing nations, to help human and natural communities cope with the impacts of climate change.

We are a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of major corporations and leading environmental organizations urging the federal government to enact legislation requiring significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

In January 2009, USCAP unveiled a comprehensive Blueprint for legislative action, outlining recommendations to the U.S. Congress and the Administration on how to fight climate change. The package calls for the creation of a federal cap-and-trade system that includes tough timelines and targets for emissions reductions. It also allows companies to meet their caps by supporting forest carbon projects, and it calls for dedicated funding to support adaptation projects around the world.

The Conservancy is working with world leaders to build support for an international climate change agreement that includes all major emitters and sources of emissions, including deforestation.  We also advocate for funding to implement nature-based adaptation strategies to help buffer the impacts of climate change on people.

Climate change picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Corbis 2002 (melting ice); Photo © Mark Godfrey/TNC (smokestack); Graph © Patrick Gonzalez/TNC (atmospheric data); Photo © Mark Godfrey/TNC (deforestation).