At the end of January the Green Living Centre held a workshop on how to write resolutions for the year ahead. These weren’t everyday resolutions such as catching up with friends or exercising more regularly, this workshop dealt specifically with resolutions to take action to reduce our climate emissions, at home and in our community. Workshop participants joined others who are committed to taking action this year.

More widely, Conal Hanna got the ball rolling on 1 January and opted for one new resolution a month. Lloyd Alter in Canada declared his aim to live a 1.5 Degree Lifestyle. Fiona Poole talks about how she’s trying to live a greener lifestyle in her Little Green Pod. Madeleine Morris decided to calculate her carbon footprint as a way to kickstart her actions.

If you want to calculate your carbon footprint there are many to choose from. Each calculator has a different focus, so you may get varied outcomes:

Even if you don’t calculate your footprint, it’s clear that Australians have one of the biggest footprints in the world. You can compare countries’ emissions at Our World in Data.

Once you’ve calculated your footprint you can get straight into action with the help of these resources:

Take a quiz to find out some of the most effective ways to combat climate change. The answers are based on the work of Project Drawdown which lists the top 80 most effective actions, according to their research and analysis. The top ten include everyday actions that we can do in our community: #3 Reduce food waste; #4 Adopt a plant-rich diet; #8 Invest in solar farms; #10 Install rooftop solar.

The Climate Council has come up with a list of its top 10 climate solutions. Many are ones that individuals and communities can act on. Another website with some fantastic solutions is 52 Climate Actions. Each action links to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and lists useful resources. They also include simple, every day, community and global actions.

For example, the actions to Reduce Food Waste are:

  • Simple: Buy a local, seasonal cookbook, and use it
  • Every day: Be conscious of food waste whenever you cook
  • Community: Support schemes that make use of food waste in your community
  • Global: Encourage your local store to donate or compost waste.

Keep on track with your resolutions by following this advice to set goal infrastructure. It’s important to think about your values and set goals that accord with them. Those who participated in the workshop thought about what matters to them in their local community and came up with resolutions around themes related to food, transport, money, energy, community, green spaces, innovation, communications and fun.

What are your climate action resolutions for 2020?