RESTORING NATURE-BASED CLIMATE-COOLING SYSTEMS
A Large-Scale Plan to Cool the Climate
Protecting, restoring, and strengthening Earth’s nature-based climate-cooling systems—at consequential scale.
A GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION
Why Nature-Based Climate Cooling (NBCC) Matters
Earth’s living systems regulate climate through processes that go far beyond carbon.
Forests, wetlands, grasslands, oceans, soils, and water cycles move heat and water, create clouds, regulate rainfall, store carbon, and influence Earth's energy balance. Protecting and restoring these systems—from our own backyards and city streets to the Amazon rainforest—can strengthen the natural processes that help cool and stabilize the climate.
Water Cycles
Living systems move water and heat through the atmosphere.
More Than Carbon
Carbon matters enormously. But it's not the whole climate story.
Cooling Now
Healthy ecosystems regulate climate every day.
Multiple Benefits
Healthy ecosystems support biodiversity, livelihoods, and climate resilience
WHAT’S HAPPENING
Nature's Cooling Systems Are Under Pressure
When living systems are degraded, their capacity to regulate heat and water weaken. Ecosystems become hotter and drier, and more vulnerable to drought, fire, and further degradation.
In places such as the Amazon, forest loss and drying can reinforce one another, reducing moisture recycling and increasing the risk of further forest loss—on a scale that has global consequences.
THE URGENT GOAL
Bend the Warming Curve
It’s not enough to slow the rate of warming—we must bend the curve toward cooling. Rapid reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions remain essential but we must also act now to protect, restore, and strengthen Earth’s nature-based climate-cooling systems at consequential scale.
The urgent goal is to help slow the rate of warming over the coming decade, move the climate toward stabilization, and work toward a sustained decline in mean land and ocean temperatures.
WARMING Rising temperatures from human-caused emissions and loss of natural cooling systems.
SLOWING Emissions reductions and restoration begin to slow the rate of warming.
STABILIZATION Warming levels off as restoration and natural cooling solutions take hold at scale.
COOLING: Stronger natural climate regulation leads to measurable declines in global temperatures.
OUR VISION
Climate Action Has Another Opportunity
Earth’s living systems give us an immediate and powerful opportunity to strengthen climate cooling.
Forests, wetlands, soils, water cycles, and other living systems are already moving water, modulating heat, and influencing Earth’s energy balance.
By protecting, restoring, and strengthening these systems at consequential scale, we can increase nature’s climate-cooling capacity—and help bend the warming curve.
EARTH’S LIVING SYSTEMS
How Nature Cools
Nature modulates and cools the climate through water, energy, carbon, and biological processes working together.
From our backyards and city streets to forests, wetlands, soils, oceans, and agricultural landscapes, living systems help regulate heat, water, clouds, rainfall, and energy flows.
Protecting, restoring, and strengthening these systems can increase nature’s climate-cooling capacity.
The Climate Cooling Initiative
Important work is already happening around the world. CCI exists to connect and strengthen that work—and help scale its climate-cooling impact.
WHAT WE DO
A Large Scale Plan
Connecting People and Knowledge: We bring together knowledge, people, organizations, tools, and projects that are too often working separately.
Accelerating the Work: We help promising approaches move from science and demonstration toward implementation at consequential scale.
Demonstrating the Results: We build the evidence and measurement needed to show real climate-cooling outcomes.
THE SCIENCE
The Science Behind Our Work
Earth’s living systems influence climate in ways that go far beyond carbon.
Our Cooling Climate Quickly White Paper brings together research on how water and energy cycles—including evapotranspiration, clouds, and atmospheric moisture—help cool and stabilize climate.
Protecting, restoring, and strengthening these systems represents a powerful climate opportunity—and a scientific foundation for a new field of climate action.
THE OPPORTUNITY
A New Field of Climate Action
Nature-based climate-cooling is emerging as a new field of science, practice, finance, policy, measurement, and implementation.
The Climate Cooling Initiative (CCI) is helping move this field forward through five interconnected layers of work—from science and cooling-leverage prioritization to project development, infrastructure, and measurement and verification—building the capacity to make climate cooling measurable, financeable, and actionable at consequential scale.
Measuring Progress: CCI is developing complementary metrics for recovered cooling capacity, changes in the warming trajectory, and measurable cooling across specific places and ecosystems.
Whether you bring science, knowledge, land, projects, policy, investment, communications, or the power of your community, there is a role for you in building this new field of climate action.
Together, we can turn nature-based climate cooling into measurable action—at consequential scale.
A GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION
Cooling the Climate Will Take All of Us
Powered by Collaboration
The Climate Cooling Initiative is a collaborative initiative supported by scientists, Indigenous leaders, restoration practitioners, financial innovators, communications specialists, and purpose-driven organizations working together to establish climate cooling as a recognized field of climate action.
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‘’We live on a live planet that can respond to the changes we make, either by canceling the changes or by canceling us.”
— James E. Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia