Climate Change Policy

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We Need to Take Action Today

We’re already feeling climate change – we shouldn’t wait to act and prepare.

At the core of central Bolivia’s lowlands, the moist Amazonian rainforest gently gives way to the drier, thorny scrub forests that characterize southeastern Bolivia. Here, in the transitional Chiquitano Dry Forest, the indigenous Guarayo people have lived off the region’s rivers and forests since precolonial times. © Ami Vitale

With millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and a billion dollars a day going overseas for imported oil, we can no longer afford to delay our transition to clean low-carbon energy.

Our dependence on carbon fuels has forced companies to search for shrinking oil reserves in increasingly remote and high-risk areas – including miles below the ocean floor. The greenhouse gasses released when we burn these fuels have already led to

These changes are weakening our natural resources across the country and around the world.

Now is the time to take action and enact comprehensive legislation that

puts strong limits on carbon pollution,
reduces our dependence on oil,
drives the innovation necessary to create millions of clean energy jobs and
ensures our natural resources are healthy and strong enough to survive the impacts of climate change that we are already seeing today.

Legislation that Works

The United States must enact legislation that will reduce our global warming pollution and protect our communities against the devastating impacts of climate change.

To effectively combat climate change, put America at the lead of the global clean energy industry, and protect our communities and vital natural resources, Congress must enact legislation that:

Puts strong limits on carbon dioxide emissions in the United States to reduce greenhouse gas pollution by at least 20 percent by 2020 and at least 80 percent by 2050.

Provides funding and policy support to protect natural resources across the country and around the world to help human and natural communities cope with the impacts of climate change.
Protects threatened forest resources and allows US businesses to invest in forest conservation activities at home and abroad as a way to meet new limits on greenhouse gas pollution. Such investments would significantly reduce the global emissions that result from deforestation, and also would keep compliance costs low for US businesses.
Promotes the development of clean energy jobs and technology across the country,

This can all be done in a way that keeps costs low for businesses and consumers as the nation joins the new low-carbon world.

An Historic Moment

Enactment of such legislation would be one of the most important environmental actions ever taken in US history, putting the nation on track to combat the greatest threat ever to face our natural systems: climate change.

We are already seeing the devastating impacts of climate change today. Those impacts will only worsen if we do not act immediately.

The Nature Conservancy is a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership USCAP), a coalition of major corporations and leading environmental organizations that is working with federal lawmakers to enact effective climate legislation.

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.