Everyone (governments, companies, consumers, local communities) can make a contribution to the collective effort. This is the only way that carbon sinks such as oceans, soil and forests can absorb all of the carbon dioxide produced by human activity.

Government commitments
At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the international community adopted the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, thereby acknowledging the significant risk facing humanity. At the same time, national governments committed themselves to attenuating the greenhouse effect.
Just over seven years after completion of the negotiation process, the Kyoto Protocol finally came into force on February 16, 2005, after its adoption by Russia (as the United States rejected the Protocol). Under the Protocol, all signatory industrialized countries have made a binding commitment to reduce emissions of the six greenhouse gases by 5.2% from 1990 levels over the period from 2008-2012.

Resources for achieving objectives
Each country has to establish a program to meet its commitments by implementing political, administrative and/or fiscal measures within its national boundaries. The instruments are well known, i.e., voluntary emissions reduction commitments, energy tax, legal limitation of pollutant emissions.
The Protocol also includes the creation of a system of emissions allowance trading, with:
- the creation of an international trading market to enable industrialized countries to buy and sell units of their emissions allowances. The concept of "emissions trading" refers to this market in which parties may buy or sell emissions allowances or emissions reduction units realized on projects.
- the use of the so-called "flexibility mechanisms" provided to permit industrialized countries to meet a portion of their emissions limitation and reduction obligations by investing in developing countries (Clean Development Mechanism) and developed countries (Joint Implementation).
In the European Union, the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) Directive introduces a system to regulate CO2 emissions by industry over the period 2005 to 2007. The system will probably be extended to the other greenhouse gases covered by the Kyoto Protocol over the period 2008 to 2012. The scheme will be implemented through two instruments: National Allocation Plans and a system for trading allowances in the European Union emissions trading market created on January 1, 2005.

While they do not grant, as we too often hear, the "right to pollute",  the creation of an emissions trading market has rather restricted economic players' capacity for CO2 emissions, which before was unregulated.

Emissions control is a collective effort
The main approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions is to focus on energy saving measures and alternative energy sources that produce less CO2 (mainly renewable energies*). This process involves everyone in the economic chain.
- Businesses by making their industrial processes more efficient, introducing improved logistics systems and switching to other forms of energy.
- Households by making the right choices in heating, transportation, appliances and even food.
- Municipalities in their decisions regarding building design, public lighting and urban transport. Whether a town decides to expand outward or build up the center will affect transportation-related energy consumption for many years.
- Agriculture: Farming relies on fossil fuels, since fuel is required to run machines and fertilizer and pesticide are needed for crops. More significantly however, activities such as livestock breeding, rice growing and composting produce large amounts of methane, and the use of nitrate fertilizers causes nitrous oxide emissions. These two gases trap over 21 and 310 times more heat per molecule than CO2, respectively.