All the technical progress and human advances of the last two centuries, which today make up our everyday "well being"  have, however, ignored something fundamental: the environmental factor.

Human activities have been influencing the atmosphere for centuries. Today, this impact has greatly increased due to the unlimited use of fossil fuels and to galloping deforestation but above all to the worldwide population explosion.  Human activities - industry, transport, agriculture, housing - emit million of tons of greenhouse gases each year; emissions that the planet cannot absorb any more and still maintain a certain climatic stability.

The first priority has to be the reduction of our own emissions in the North.

On the individual level the priority has to be to change our life style and consumption choices (to favour local and seasonal products, to use public transport, to control  energy consumption, ...).
For companies and communities, it has to be to take concrete action to make reductions in the areas of highest emissions (home, work place and professional transport, direct energy consumption, equipment and furnishings..) and to make investments that have less impact on the climate (buildings, vehicle fleets, biomass energy contracts...).

 > In the sections of this chapter find useful information to help you understand the current state of climate change; change for which the North has an historic responsibility. Read also the history and workings of the international negotiations on climate, which have led GERES, since 2005, to take an interest in carbon markets.