10.4a2 Mitigation

Governments, therefore, can and do engage in climate action planning. Climate action planning involves governments creating policies and plans that focus on addressing climate change in their communities. For example, small island states, including Fiji, Jamaica, and Seychelles, have implemented a range of climate change mitigations, including physical changes, such as building seawalls to prevent flooding, social changes, such as educating the public about climate change, and legal changes, such as creating protected areas that are off-limits to development (Klöck & Nunn, 2019).

Photo 10.15

A Seawall Can Prevent Flooding in a Community

Individuals also respond to the climate crisis in a variety of ways. For example, some ultra-rich are building multi-million dollar bunkers and buying military-grade vehicles to protect themselves from whatever future they imagine could result from threats such as climate change (Mayer, 2024; Stamp, 2019). Responses such as these are individual adaptations to the climate crisis. Sociologists and other scientists argue that collective solutions are necessary for addressing social problems such as the climate crisis.