There is no debate regarding climate change: it’s real, it’s already happening at an alarming rate, and urgent action on an international scale is needed to mitigate its effects.

But another debate divides the climate movement: do individual actions such as behavioral and lifestyle changes actually do anything meaningful, compared to advocating for systemic changes from state governments and corporations?

Critics of personal lifestyle changes, like purchasing reusable products, riding bicycles or conserving water and power at home, say that this “eco-consumerism” is merely a way to excuse and shift responsibilities away from governments while being ineffective at addressing the roots of climate change. They say that promoting individual responsibility actually paralyzes actual change, because people will be content at making lifestyle changes rather than demanding systemic changes.

The effects of individual climate action can also seem minuscule when studies have pointed out that 70% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the world come from just 100 investor and state-owned fossil fuel companies. As such, advocates for systemic changes have instead insisting on calling for governments and industries to take the lead in mitigating climate change, and to stop blaming individuals for the crisis.

But what the debate misses is that choosing between individual lifestyle changes and advocating for systemic climate action are not mutually exclusive. More importantly, the climate emergency is an ongoing reality, to speak of its effects in the future tense misrepresents the situation we are currently in. If we frame our discussions towards hoping for an abstract concept of “systemic action” in the future, by then it will have already been too late.

Ultimately, individual actions are something that we can do immediately, from which we build upon a bigger and more impactful climate action. But how do we go about doing just that?

Inconsistency and unreliability

While states and corporations have the authority and resources needed to implement systemic changes, their track record in doing so leaves a lot to be desired.

International state action and regulation, at least on paper, appears to be the most effective form of tackling the climate crisis. Such efforts have already yielded successes, like when the 1987 Montreal Protocol effectively phased out ozone-depleting substances from global use and set the course for the restoration of the ozone layer within the next few decades.

But state governments can be inconsistent in their policies, and at worst, are themselves also responsible for much environmental damage due to mismanagement, misguided policies, and complicity in infrastructure projects that threaten indigenous ancestral lands and key biodiversity areas. They can also suddenly show disregard for international agreements, as demonstrated by the United States when they pulled out of the Paris climate agreements under the Trump administration and pledged support to the coal industry. In more drastic cases, governments have outright used state forces to harass, detain and even murder environmental activists and land defenders by the hundreds. Even supposedly “liberal” governments such as Canada have been called out for their hypocrisy in promoting climate action on the world stage, while also continuing to expand its oil sands operations in Alberta which have been dubbed the world’s most destructive.

Industries and corporations on the other hand, are also unreliable as they tend to misuse environmental and climate advocacies as nothing more than public relations tools. Despite advertisement campaigns from companies like Shell or Exxon promising to take significant actions to make their companies “greener”, in reality a report by the Global Gas and Oil Network has shown that the fossil fuel industry as a whole is investing US$1.4 trillion in new oil and gas extraction projects for the next few years. The same report has also shown that almost all major international oil companies have approved new oil/gas projects that are not compliant with the Paris climate agreements.

Thus, it is difficult to completely trust state governments alone to be completely invested in advocating for climate action, when they themselves have acted as obstacles towards the environmental cause. The nature of international policy-making, rife with vested interests, constantly changing regimes, and the lack of a guarantee for ensuring compliance, makes relying on states to do the heavy lifting in climate action a slow, unwieldy, and ultimately unreliable method of climate action. It is unlikely we can also expect to see corporations, especially in the fossil fuel industry, to budge from their profit-seeking nature when the cause for protecting and restoring our Earth is diametrically opposed to their short-term business model.

Interlinked struggles

Mainstream, individualist and capital-oriented climate initiatives tend to focus on small-impact actions like reducing household power consumption, practicing “reduce, reuse, recycle” and purchasing “green” products. Critics have pointed out, though rightfully, that even doing all of these consistently still has limited effects in mitigating climate change. Some higher impact actions demand greater sacrifices for individuals, among them eating plant-based diets, not driving a car, avoiding international flights, and having fewer children (or no children at all.)  While individuals who commit to these are commendable, the reality is that we simply cannot expect that a significant part of the population (across different cultures, environments and socio-economic backgrounds) will commit to these sacrifices, at least not within the urgent time frame that climate action demands. The climate emergency is happening today; we need action now, not later.

But as individuals, there are ways we can act that will ripple across and have the greatest benefit to those that need it.

For example, one way to tackle climate change is by supporting low carbon-emitting community forest enterprises (CFEs), which research and experience has shown are highly effective at protecting the forests and empowering the communities that depend and care for them. Fighting climate change involves forest conservation, and that is impossible to do without the support of the indigenous and forest communities who live in, feed from and guard the forests that they depend on. To do so, their economic needs must be met so that they will not be forced to migrate to urban areas for employment or be forced to plant cash crops just to make ends meet.

When we factor in that indigenous peoples protect 80% of the world’s biodiversity areas and possess traditional knowledge and practices in adapting, mitigating and reducing the risks associated with climate change, it becomes an imperative that we link our efforts towards theirs, such as in recognizing the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities on their customary land and forest tenure. Supporting CFEs by patronizing their forest products ensures their economic security and their sustainability efforts can continue on, as they have done so for countless generations before.