The purpose of mitigation is the reduction of vulnerability, which can be said to be the mitigation of potential damage to life and property caused by a geological event, such as an earthquake or tsunami; hydrological, such as a flood or drought; or sanitary.

Mitigation is also understood as the set of measures that can be taken to counteract or minimize the negative environmental impacts that some anthropogenic interventions could have. These measures must be consolidated in a mitigation plan, which must be part of the environmental impact study.

Between 1995 and 2004, nine of the ten hottest years in history were recorded. Approximately 600 million people currently suffer from malnutrition due to the collapse of agricultural systems as a result of rising temperatures, increased exposure to drought and erratic rainfall. Therefore, addressing this problem is key to reducing poverty. Stabilization will depend on the success of various mitigation measures, which have an estimated cost of 400 billion dollars per year for developing countries.

Although evaluating mitigation instruments is problematic, this allows factors such as environmental effectiveness or cost efficiency to be measured. For example, the implementation of regulations and certain taxes and financial incentives has managed to reduce global CO2 emissions. In contrast, the application of tradable permits and voluntary agreements have not achieved this. There are also other instruments whose impact has not yet been evaluated, such as information campaigns, or financial support for research and development. Beyond this, it is important to carry out a cost-benefit analysis of each instrument to be able to evaluate them in detail.[1]​.