Urgent and practical action is needed to tackle the increasing environmental pressures the world is facing.

These pressures will be felt most acutely by people who cannot afford to protect themselves from extreme weather events, drought and rising sea levels.

Understanding the issues

As passionate and committed people, we are acutely aware that it is sometimes easy to exaggerate the scale of the environmental problems we face, or to leap to ill-thought through solutions. Neither exaggeration, or ill-thought solutions will persuade people to change though. Instead Global Action Plan endeavours to develop programmes and focus efforts based on the best scientific advice available. 

Sometimes this means that we haven’t reached a position or a conclusion about a particular environmental issue. Many things are about weighing the positives and negatives of several options with no clear right or wrong. Where this is the case we will try to balance all sides of an argument and allow people to choose what they think based upon the best information available.

Why we need to work together

We do believe that man-made carbon emissions are contributing to climate change and that significant changes are desperately needed in both our lifestyles and their surrounding systems if we are to avoid the worst implications of a changing climate. We believe that with concerted action at all levels we can achieve this target. 

A low carbon society will be different but no less enjoyable. Our infrastructure will change with our electricity coming from zero carbon sources, our transport system is likely to be electrified and our buildings will be far more energy efficient.

Conserving resources

Lifestyles will alter. Diets will need to become less meat and dairy intensive, our passion for endless consumption changed. The throwaway society will become a thing of the past as will reckless use of water which will be become an increasingly valuable resource.

Energy and transport costs will increase considerably making us more energy efficient and transforming the way we view distant commutes to work and air travel. If we make this change well, research suggests we could have less stressful and lead happier and more fulfilling lives.

Our relationship and respect for nature will alter. We will need to concede that nature will win more battles over technology. This will mean that coastal regions will be given back to the sea, flood plains will not be built on and our lifestyles will change to become more resilient to extreme weather events.

Moving towards a sustainable future

Society will change. Communities will become stronger as we shift values from material possession to people, time and true quality of life. We will have to accept a more interventionist Government that is strong enough to make long-term decisions to shift us from our current direction towards that of a sustainable one. 

Read more news and views from our CEO, Trewin Restorick's blog.

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