The Doing Gap – Getting more people involved in solving problems and taking climate action.

The IPCC has made it clear that closing the gap between words and action on climate change is now imperative if climate targets aren’t to slip out of reach entirely. The impact of escalating climate-related disasters, from floods in Pakistan to drought in the Horn of Africa, demonstrates how critical it is that action is taken to prevent the loss of lives and property for countries already experiencing devastating impacts of global heating.

The scale of “doing” needed in the next few years requires the mobilization of many more people and organizations than at present. Collective intelligence initiatives can help achieve this by enabling people to monitor the actions and follow-through of institutions, industry and government, increasing accountability and transparency of progress in relation to commitments. Digital tools are helping to shift the scale of action by supporting people to take more coordinated and effective actions. Ideas and know-how that are otherwise distributed and difficult to access, are being shared by communities of practice like smallholder farmers or individuals and groups who are dispersed across a region. This means localized actions are scaling to produce additive and emergent effects, helping to transition towards sustainable, climate resilient behaviors at a faster rate.