Climate change 101: Understanding and responding to global climate change

This series of brief reports provides a reliable and understandable introduction to climate change. They cover climate science and impacts, adaptation efforts, technological solutions, business solutions, international action, policy options at the U.S. federal level, recent action in the U.S. states, and action taken by local governments. An overview serves as a summary and introduction to the series. The installment of the series explains how a cap-and-trade program sets a clear limit on greenhouse gas emissions and minimizes the costs of achieving this target.

The eight-part series includes: (i) science and impacts discusses the scientific evidence for climate change and explains its causes and current and projected impacts; (ii) adaptation discusses these impacts in greater depth explaining how planning can limit the damage caused by unavoidable climate change; (iii) technological solutions explores a number of technological options exist to avert dangerous climatic change by dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions both now and into the future; and (iv) business solutions, (v) international action, (vi) federal action, (vii) state action and (viii) local action describe how business and government leaders at all levels have recognized both the challenge and the opportunity to deal with climate change.