Giving Compass' Take:

• Fast Company discusses the large role environmentalists can play in taking action on climate change, despite the current U.S administration's efforts to set things back.

• Among the solutions here are startups that are pioneering carbon capture techniques. Impact-minded investors should pay close attention to the companies rising quickly in this field.

• Learn more about climate justice efforts.

After the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its report on October 8, detailing the imperative need to fully decarbonize in the next three decades or face disastrous global consequences, Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Fast Company that most of the technology we need to make the change to a carbon-free society exists or is in development. What we lack, she says, is political will.

That is an issue that merits its own article to unpack, but for now, let’s focus on some of the tech that could help us take carbon out of the equation by 2050 — starting with the satellites to track emissions and the state of the planet all the way through to inventions that suck carbon out of the air and startups connecting consumers directly with renewable energy. Some are still in development, others are scaling up ...

A number of startups are pioneering ways to, quite literally, suck carbon from the atmosphere. The “direct air capture” (or DAC) industry is still new, and nowhere near at scale enough to begin making a dent in the overall concentration of carbon. But startups are optimistic. Last year, for instance, the European company Climeworks debuted its first carbon-capture machine: Three stacked shipping containers equipped with small fans that pull in air from which carbon dioxide can be filtered out, purified, and stored.

Read the full article about pursuing climate change solutions by Eillie Anzilotti at fastcompany.com.