 Ice climbing in February 2024 after a heavy thaw. The United Nations COP 29 meeting is taking place right now in Azerbaijan. As usual, it seems that the systemic change we need to see from countries right around the world takes place at the pace of a glacier. In fact it seems like the glaciers are melting away faster than we can react to them doing so! This is the fourth year in a row that all the snow in Scotland has melted away, including The Sphynx, the snow patch on Braeriach in the Cairngorms, which was considered to be permanent until just 20 years ago. Ian Cameron, the snow patch expert, says "it has now melted completely since the 1700s in the following years: 1933, 1959, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024." This is only 11 times that the snow patch has melted away and six of those times were in the last 8 years. There is no doubt that over the last 24 years of running our small guiding company, we have seen huge changes in seasonal conditions due to climate change. For many years it was easy to oversee these changes due to the inherent variability of the weather in Scotland. We've always had good winters and bad winters, dry summers and (more often) wet summers. But, even taking into account this natural variability and the short nature of our memories, it is absolutely clear that man made climate change is having an impact on all of us now.  Observatory Gully February 2024 What is less clear is what we should do about it. Several decades ago, big oil companies successfully shifted the emphasis onto us individuals, coming up with the term Carbon Footprint to make the discussion more about what we can do as individuals rather than what governments and oil companies should do. In fact, by far the biggest levers we have to enact systemic change are voting and donating to effective climate charities. Doing our recycling and changing to LED light bulbs will have very little impact on anything. If we were to follow the top three most effective lifestyle choices and we gave up a car, switched to a plant based diet and didn’t take a transatlantic flight, we would save approximately 6.2 tons of carbon per year. The average UK carbon emission per person is around 10 tons per year, so this would be a significant saving. All of these actions are great initiatives and set a positive example for a better future, but they are far less effective than what can be achieved through legislation driven by governments that are willing to place the environment high enough on their agendas, helped by really effective charities.  Golden Oldie March 2024 This was all new to me before I went on a workshop delivered by Jennifer Stretton of Mieux Donner. Jen lives in Chamonix and works as an international mountain leader. She spends her summers guiding hikes in the Alps and her winters guiding ski trips in Finland. In conversations with her groups, she realised that the majority of people care deeply about climate change, but the situation seems so vast and hopeless that it causes anxiety and paralysis. This led her to take action and she founded Mieux Donner alongside Romain Barbe, in order to educate people about the most effective actions they can take to not only reduce their own carbon footprint, but make a huge positive difference in the world. There are concrete, evidence based actions we can all take to reduce our carbon footprint, but the issue is there’s a lot of conflicting information online leading to a huge mismatch between what most people think is effective, and what’s actually effective:  Stob Coire nan Lochan March 2024 In her blog "How to turn your climate anxiety into action" Jen says that the most effective action we can take is to donate to one of the six most effective charities that she lists. As an example, one of the most effective climate charities, The Clean Air Task Force worked closely with the European Commission to pass the landmark EU Methane Regulation last year. It’s estimated that regulations like this could achieve a huge 30% reduction in emissions from the oil and gas industry. Another example of a highly effective charity is The Good Food Institute, who promote the development of plant based and lab grown meats. Alternative proteins are a particularly promising way of addressing climate change because livestock farming is responsible for around 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In comparison to traditional carbon offsets which have little independent oversight, the most effective climate charities have been rigorously vetted by the world’s leading independent charity evaluators. Both Clean Air Task Force and the Good Food Institute for example have been independently evaluated by Giving Green to avoid 1 ton of carbon for every euro donated to them. To put this into context, if you were to donate 170 euros a month to Clean Air Task Force or The Good Food Institute, your donation would mitigate more than 2000 tons of carbon in the atmosphere, equivalent to:
 So, forget about carbon offsets, donate to these charities instead and vote with environmental sustainability at the forefront of who you vote for. The most effective associations in the field of climate change stand out for their ability to generate significant impacts thanks to their strategic approach. They prioritize political and technological interventions, creating powerful levers for reducing global emissions. Their approach is based on in-depth research and collaboration with various stakeholders to maximize results.
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