what is the conclusion for climate change

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6 Conclusion

It is essential that societies seek ways of becoming environmentally sustainable and adaptable to unknowable environmental changes, particularly in the climate. This must happen in the context of globalisation. The concept of sustainability is coming to prominence at a time when established structures of government are being questioned and new ways of thinking about governance are being explored.

Globalisation has several dimensions that are relevant to the discussion of environmental change and sustainability. In addition to the widely used economic meaning of the term, political, social or cultural and ecological dimensions of globalisation are drawn out.

Three different views on the relationship between globalisation and the environment can be identified: ‘business learns’ sustainability (in its own self-interest),‘radical break’ with globalisation (and pursuit of sustainable grassroots alternatives), and ‘sustainability steps’ (incremental progress based in partnership but emphasising a role for government). There are empirical examples of each approach (Interface carpets, the Findhorn eco-village, the Forest Stewardship Council).

Comparison of the concepts of government and the more recently prominent term ‘governance’ demonstrates some of the strengths, but also the threats, implicit in a shift to more flexible and open-ended decision-making structures.

New forms of governance imply new ways of practising citizenship: writers now argue for cosmopolitan and ecological citizenship.

Communication and debate will be important if any – or a mix – of these approaches are to thrive, hence the media, and specifically quality web journalism, are a key location for advancing towards sustainability.

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The Latest IPCC Report: What is it and why does it matter?

The UN released a new climate report—here's what it says, and what we can do about it

Last updated March 20, 2023

This article was updated on March 20, 2023, to include findings from the most recent IPCC report.

The IPCC has released a new climate report, updating and synthesizing the findings from a series of previous reports. But what exactly is the IPCC? What do all these reports mean? Is our situation as grim as some of the news headlines make it sound?

We’ve prepared this guide to help you understand what these climate reports are, what their findings mean for our world and what we can do.

What is the IPCC and what do they do?

IPCC stands for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . The IPCC is the scientific group assembled by the United Nations to monitor and assess all global science related to climate change. Every IPCC report focuses on different aspects of climate change.

This latest report is the IPCC’s 6 th Synthesis report. It updates and compiles in one report findings from all the reports in the IPCC’s sixth assessment cycle, which covered the latest climate science, the threats we’re already facing today from climate change, and what we can do to limit further temperature rises and the dangers that poses for the whole planet.

What should I know about the latest IPCC report?

There is some good news in this synthesis report. There have been promising developments in low-carbon technologies. Countries are making more ambitious national commitments to reduce their emissions and doing more to help communities adapt to the effects of climate change. And we’re seeing more funding committed for all of this work.

The problem is it’s still not enough. Even if every country in the world delivers on its current climate pledges, that’s probably not enough to keep global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels—a threshold scientists believe is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Current adaptation efforts, too, are scattered and leave behind some of the most vulnerable communities. And if the planet gets much warmer, we may see irreversible changes to some ecosystems around the world, which would be catastrophic for the people and wildlife that depend on them.

Want to go deeper on the findings? TNC Chief Scientist Katharine Hayhoe breaks them down in this Twitter thread .

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Is there any hope then?

Yes. Climate change is here today, reshaping our world in ways big and small—but that doesn’t mean our future is predetermined. Every fraction of a degree of warming makes a big difference in how powerful the effects of climate change will be, including the frequency and intensity of heatwaves, storms, floods and droughts. That means every action we take to limit further warming makes a big difference, especially for vulnerable communities around the world.

We need bolder global climate commitments, and we need them fast so we can transition to clean energy and reach “net zero” emissions as soon possible . And as the IPCC's reports shows, we’ll not only need to cut out emissions—we’ll have to remove some of the carbon that’s already in the atmosphere. Fortunately, nature created a powerful technology that does just that: photosynthesis . Plants naturally absorb carbon from the air and store it in their roots and in the soil.

In addition to phasing out fossil fuels, we also need to protect the natural habitats around the world that store billions of tons of this “living carbon.” We can also help by changing the way we manage working lands like farms and timber forests so they retain more carbon, and restore natural habitats on lands that have been cleared or degraded.  

What can we do to stop climate change?

A global challenge like climate change requires global solutions. It will require movement-building and on-the-ground action, as well as new national policies and economic transformations. Here’s a few things that communities, governments, and business can do.  

Communities

• When it comes to working with nature to fight climate change, we cannot achieve effective action without the leadership of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs).
• These communities are some of the most important protectors of the world’s living carbon, as lands owned or managed by IPLCs often have much lower deforestation rates than government protected areas. In fact, Indigenous-managed lands support about 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity and 17 percent of the planet’s forest carbon.
• To help Indigenous groups keep playing this crucial role, governments must formally recognize their land and resource rights, and funding for climate action should include support for their communities.

Related reading: Protecting nature through authentic partnerships.  

Governments

• All countries—especially the wealthy countries that generate the most emissions— must create more ambitious climate action plans to eliminate emissions and pull more carbon from their atmosphere—and they need to follow through on them.
• In addition to cutting fossil fuel use, this can be done investing more in nature . The IPCC estimates it would cost about $400 billion to make the changes to agriculture, forestry and other land uses required to limit emissions. That sounds like a lot—but it’s less than the government subsidies these sectors are already receiving .
• The best part? Many of these natural climate solutions benefit society in other ways , like improving air and water quality, producing more food and protecting the variety of natural life we all depend on.

Related reading: Canada's new climate plan includes working with nature to reduce emissions.

• Like national governments, businesses must first and foremost commit to reaching net-zero emissions in their operations—they have to stop putting more carbon into the air.
• The most direct way to do this is to switch to clean energy sources . Transitioning to renewable energy provides a low-cost, low-carbon, low-conflict pathway to meet global energy needs without harming nature and communities.
• Those sectors that will have a hard time reducing their emissions today—like airlines, for example—should find ways to offset their impact.
• Carbon markets offer one way to achieve this. Carbon markets allow businesses and other polluters to purchase “offsets” for their unavoidable emissions, which pay to protect natural lands that would have otherwise been cleared without that funding or restore those that would not recover. 

Related reading: An illustrated guide to carbon offsets.

What can I do as an individual?

• Learn how to talk about climate change: We can all help by engaging and educating others. Our guide will help you feel comfortable raising these topics at the dinner table with your friends and family. Download our guide to talk about climate change.
• Share your thoughts: Share this page on your social channels so others know what they can do, too. Here are some hashtags to join the conversation: #IPCC #ClimateAction #NatureNow
• Join collective action : By speaking collectively, we can influence climate action at the national and global levels. You can add your name to stand with The Nature Conservancy in calling for real solutions now.
• Keep learning : Educate yourself and share the knowledge—you can start with some of these articles, videos, and other resources .

Videos: Climate Issues Explained

Climate Action Resources

Natural Climate Solutions Handbook

October 2021

A technical guide for assessing nature-based mitigation opportunities in countries More information on Natural Climate Solutions

Playbook for Climate Action

This playbook showcases five innovative pathways for reducing emissions and climate impacts. A comprehensive suite of science-based solutions, the playbook presents actions governments and companies can deploy—and scale—today. Visit the Digital Version

Further Reading

COP28: Your Guide to the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference in UAE

COP28 takes place November 30-December 12, 2023 in United Arab Emirates. This guide will tell you what to expect at COP28, why TNC will be there, and what it all means for you.

Climate Change FAQs

You asked. Our scientists answered. Use this guide to have the best info about climate change and how we can solve it together.

Coastal Risk And Resilience

Recognizing the Protective Value of Nature

Global Insights

To get more tips like this, plus feature stories and the latest news from the world of nature, sign up for our monthly newsletter.

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Climate Change

Evidence and causes: update 2020.

Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time. It is now more certain than ever, based on many lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth's climate. The Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences, with their similar missions to promote the use of science to benefit society and to inform critical policy debates, produced the original Climate Change: Evidence and Causes in 2014. It was written and reviewed by a UK-US team of leading climate scientists. This new edition, prepared by the same author team, has been updated with the most recent climate data and scientific analyses, all of which reinforce our understanding of human-caused climate change.

Scientific information is a vital component for society to make informed decisions about how to reduce the magnitude of climate change and how to adapt to its impacts. This booklet serves as a key reference document for decision makers, policy makers, educators, and others seeking authoritative answers about the current state of climate-change science.

RESOURCES AT A GLANCE

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National Academy of Sciences. 2020. Climate Change: Evidence and Causes: Update 2020 . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25733. Import this citation to: Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager

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The Science of Climate Change Explained: Facts, Evidence and Proof

Definitive answers to the big questions.

Credit... Photo Illustration by Andrea D'Aquino

Supported by

By Julia Rosen

Ms. Rosen is a journalist with a Ph.D. in geology. Her research involved studying ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica to understand past climate changes.

• Published April 19, 2021 Updated Nov. 6, 2021

The science of climate change is more solid and widely agreed upon than you might think. But the scope of the topic, as well as rampant disinformation, can make it hard to separate fact from fiction. Here, we’ve done our best to present you with not only the most accurate scientific information, but also an explanation of how we know it.

How do we know climate change is really happening?

How much agreement is there among scientists about climate change, do we really only have 150 years of climate data how is that enough to tell us about centuries of change, how do we know climate change is caused by humans, since greenhouse gases occur naturally, how do we know they’re causing earth’s temperature to rise, why should we be worried that the planet has warmed 2°f since the 1800s, is climate change a part of the planet’s natural warming and cooling cycles, how do we know global warming is not because of the sun or volcanoes, how can winters and certain places be getting colder if the planet is warming, wildfires and bad weather have always happened. how do we know there’s a connection to climate change, how bad are the effects of climate change going to be, what will it cost to do something about climate change, versus doing nothing.

Climate change is often cast as a prediction made by complicated computer models. But the scientific basis for climate change is much broader, and models are actually only one part of it (and, for what it’s worth, they’re surprisingly accurate ).

For more than a century , scientists have understood the basic physics behind why greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide cause warming. These gases make up just a small fraction of the atmosphere but exert outsized control on Earth’s climate by trapping some of the planet’s heat before it escapes into space. This greenhouse effect is important: It’s why a planet so far from the sun has liquid water and life!

However, during the Industrial Revolution, people started burning coal and other fossil fuels to power factories, smelters and steam engines, which added more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Ever since, human activities have been heating the planet.

We know this is true thanks to an overwhelming body of evidence that begins with temperature measurements taken at weather stations and on ships starting in the mid-1800s. Later, scientists began tracking surface temperatures with satellites and looking for clues about climate change in geologic records. Together, these data all tell the same story: Earth is getting hotter.

Average global temperatures have increased by 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.2 degrees Celsius, since 1880, with the greatest changes happening in the late 20th century. Land areas have warmed more than the sea surface and the Arctic has warmed the most — by more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit just since the 1960s. Temperature extremes have also shifted. In the United States, daily record highs now outnumber record lows two-to-one.

Where it was cooler or warmer in 2020 compared with the middle of the 20th century

This warming is unprecedented in recent geologic history. A famous illustration, first published in 1998 and often called the hockey-stick graph, shows how temperatures remained fairly flat for centuries (the shaft of the stick) before turning sharply upward (the blade). It’s based on data from tree rings, ice cores and other natural indicators. And the basic picture , which has withstood decades of scrutiny from climate scientists and contrarians alike, shows that Earth is hotter today than it’s been in at least 1,000 years, and probably much longer.

In fact, surface temperatures actually mask the true scale of climate change, because the ocean has absorbed 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases . Measurements collected over the last six decades by oceanographic expeditions and networks of floating instruments show that every layer of the ocean is warming up. According to one study , the ocean has absorbed as much heat between 1997 and 2015 as it did in the previous 130 years.

We also know that climate change is happening because we see the effects everywhere. Ice sheets and glaciers are shrinking while sea levels are rising. Arctic sea ice is disappearing. In the spring, snow melts sooner and plants flower earlier. Animals are moving to higher elevations and latitudes to find cooler conditions. And droughts, floods and wildfires have all gotten more extreme. Models predicted many of these changes, but observations show they are now coming to pass.

Back to top .

There’s no denying that scientists love a good, old-fashioned argument. But when it comes to climate change, there is virtually no debate: Numerous studies have found that more than 90 percent of scientists who study Earth’s climate agree that the planet is warming and that humans are the primary cause. Most major scientific bodies, from NASA to the World Meteorological Organization , endorse this view. That’s an astounding level of consensus given the contrarian, competitive nature of the scientific enterprise, where questions like what killed the dinosaurs remain bitterly contested .

Scientific agreement about climate change started to emerge in the late 1980s, when the influence of human-caused warming began to rise above natural climate variability. By 1991, two-thirds of earth and atmospheric scientists surveyed for an early consensus study said that they accepted the idea of anthropogenic global warming. And by 1995, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a famously conservative body that periodically takes stock of the state of scientific knowledge, concluded that “the balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate.” Currently, more than 97 percent of publishing climate scientists agree on the existence and cause of climate change (as does nearly 60 percent of the general population of the United States).

So where did we get the idea that there’s still debate about climate change? A lot of it came from coordinated messaging campaigns by companies and politicians that opposed climate action. Many pushed the narrative that scientists still hadn’t made up their minds about climate change, even though that was misleading. Frank Luntz, a Republican consultant, explained the rationale in an infamous 2002 memo to conservative lawmakers: “Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly,” he wrote. Questioning consensus remains a common talking point today, and the 97 percent figure has become something of a lightning rod .

To bolster the falsehood of lingering scientific doubt, some people have pointed to things like the Global Warming Petition Project, which urged the United States government to reject the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, an early international climate agreement. The petition proclaimed that climate change wasn’t happening, and even if it were, it wouldn’t be bad for humanity. Since 1998, more than 30,000 people with science degrees have signed it. However, nearly 90 percent of them studied something other than Earth, atmospheric or environmental science, and the signatories included just 39 climatologists. Most were engineers, doctors, and others whose training had little to do with the physics of the climate system.

A few well-known researchers remain opposed to the scientific consensus. Some, like Willie Soon, a researcher affiliated with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, have ties to the fossil fuel industry . Others do not, but their assertions have not held up under the weight of evidence. At least one prominent skeptic, the physicist Richard Muller, changed his mind after reassessing historical temperature data as part of the Berkeley Earth project. His team’s findings essentially confirmed the results he had set out to investigate, and he came away firmly convinced that human activities were warming the planet. “Call me a converted skeptic,” he wrote in an Op-Ed for the Times in 2012.

Mr. Luntz, the Republican pollster, has also reversed his position on climate change and now advises politicians on how to motivate climate action.

A final note on uncertainty: Denialists often use it as evidence that climate science isn’t settled. However, in science, uncertainty doesn’t imply a lack of knowledge. Rather, it’s a measure of how well something is known. In the case of climate change, scientists have found a range of possible future changes in temperature, precipitation and other important variables — which will depend largely on how quickly we reduce emissions. But uncertainty does not undermine their confidence that climate change is real and that people are causing it.

Earth’s climate is inherently variable. Some years are hot and others are cold, some decades bring more hurricanes than others, some ancient droughts spanned the better part of centuries. Glacial cycles operate over many millenniums. So how can scientists look at data collected over a relatively short period of time and conclude that humans are warming the planet? The answer is that the instrumental temperature data that we have tells us a lot, but it’s not all we have to go on.

Historical records stretch back to the 1880s (and often before), when people began to regularly measure temperatures at weather stations and on ships as they traversed the world’s oceans. These data show a clear warming trend during the 20th century.

Global average temperature compared with the middle of the 20th century

+0.75°C

–0.25°

Some have questioned whether these records could be skewed, for instance, by the fact that a disproportionate number of weather stations are near cities, which tend to be hotter than surrounding areas as a result of the so-called urban heat island effect. However, researchers regularly correct for these potential biases when reconstructing global temperatures. In addition, warming is corroborated by independent data like satellite observations, which cover the whole planet, and other ways of measuring temperature changes.

Much has also been made of the small dips and pauses that punctuate the rising temperature trend of the last 150 years. But these are just the result of natural climate variability or other human activities that temporarily counteract greenhouse warming. For instance, in the mid-1900s, internal climate dynamics and light-blocking pollution from coal-fired power plants halted global warming for a few decades. (Eventually, rising greenhouse gases and pollution-control laws caused the planet to start heating up again.) Likewise, the so-called warming hiatus of the 2000s was partly a result of natural climate variability that allowed more heat to enter the ocean rather than warm the atmosphere. The years since have been the hottest on record .

Still, could the entire 20th century just be one big natural climate wiggle? To address that question, we can look at other kinds of data that give a longer perspective. Researchers have used geologic records like tree rings, ice cores, corals and sediments that preserve information about prehistoric climates to extend the climate record. The resulting picture of global temperature change is basically flat for centuries, then turns sharply upward over the last 150 years. It has been a target of climate denialists for decades. However, study after study has confirmed the results , which show that the planet hasn’t been this hot in at least 1,000 years, and probably longer.

Scientists have studied past climate changes to understand the factors that can cause the planet to warm or cool. The big ones are changes in solar energy, ocean circulation, volcanic activity and the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And they have each played a role at times.

For example, 300 years ago, a combination of reduced solar output and increased volcanic activity cooled parts of the planet enough that Londoners regularly ice skated on the Thames . About 12,000 years ago, major changes in Atlantic circulation plunged the Northern Hemisphere into a frigid state. And 56 million years ago, a giant burst of greenhouse gases, from volcanic activity or vast deposits of methane (or both), abruptly warmed the planet by at least 9 degrees Fahrenheit, scrambling the climate, choking the oceans and triggering mass extinctions.

In trying to determine the cause of current climate changes, scientists have looked at all of these factors . The first three have varied a bit over the last few centuries and they have quite likely had modest effects on climate , particularly before 1950. But they cannot account for the planet’s rapidly rising temperature, especially in the second half of the 20th century, when solar output actually declined and volcanic eruptions exerted a cooling effect.

That warming is best explained by rising greenhouse gas concentrations . Greenhouse gases have a powerful effect on climate (see the next question for why). And since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been adding more of them to the atmosphere, primarily by extracting and burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, which releases carbon dioxide.

Bubbles of ancient air trapped in ice show that, before about 1750, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was roughly 280 parts per million. It began to rise slowly and crossed the 300 p.p.m. threshold around 1900. CO2 levels then accelerated as cars and electricity became big parts of modern life, recently topping 420 p.p.m . The concentration of methane, the second most important greenhouse gas, has more than doubled. We’re now emitting carbon much faster than it was released 56 million years ago .

30 billion metric tons

Carbon dioxide emitted worldwide 1850-2017

Rest of world

Other developed

European Union

Developed economies

Other countries

United States

E.U. and U.K.

These rapid increases in greenhouse gases have caused the climate to warm abruptly. In fact, climate models suggest that greenhouse warming can explain virtually all of the temperature change since 1950. According to the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which assesses published scientific literature, natural drivers and internal climate variability can only explain a small fraction of late-20th century warming.

Another study put it this way: The odds of current warming occurring without anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are less than 1 in 100,000 .

But greenhouse gases aren’t the only climate-altering compounds people put into the air. Burning fossil fuels also produces particulate pollution that reflects sunlight and cools the planet. Scientists estimate that this pollution has masked up to half of the greenhouse warming we would have otherwise experienced.

Greenhouse gases like water vapor and carbon dioxide serve an important role in the climate. Without them, Earth would be far too cold to maintain liquid water and humans would not exist!

Here’s how it works: the planet’s temperature is basically a function of the energy the Earth absorbs from the sun (which heats it up) and the energy Earth emits to space as infrared radiation (which cools it down). Because of their molecular structure, greenhouse gases temporarily absorb some of that outgoing infrared radiation and then re-emit it in all directions, sending some of that energy back toward the surface and heating the planet . Scientists have understood this process since the 1850s .

Greenhouse gas concentrations have varied naturally in the past. Over millions of years, atmospheric CO2 levels have changed depending on how much of the gas volcanoes belched into the air and how much got removed through geologic processes. On time scales of hundreds to thousands of years, concentrations have changed as carbon has cycled between the ocean, soil and air.

Today, however, we are the ones causing CO2 levels to increase at an unprecedented pace by taking ancient carbon from geologic deposits of fossil fuels and putting it into the atmosphere when we burn them. Since 1750, carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by almost 50 percent. Methane and nitrous oxide, other important anthropogenic greenhouse gases that are released mainly by agricultural activities, have also spiked over the last 250 years.

We know based on the physics described above that this should cause the climate to warm. We also see certain telltale “fingerprints” of greenhouse warming. For example, nights are warming even faster than days because greenhouse gases don’t go away when the sun sets. And upper layers of the atmosphere have actually cooled, because more energy is being trapped by greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere.

We also know that we are the cause of rising greenhouse gas concentrations — and not just because we can measure the CO2 coming out of tailpipes and smokestacks. We can see it in the chemical signature of the carbon in CO2.

Carbon comes in three different masses: 12, 13 and 14. Things made of organic matter (including fossil fuels) tend to have relatively less carbon-13. Volcanoes tend to produce CO2 with relatively more carbon-13. And over the last century, the carbon in atmospheric CO2 has gotten lighter, pointing to an organic source.

We can tell it’s old organic matter by looking for carbon-14, which is radioactive and decays over time. Fossil fuels are too ancient to have any carbon-14 left in them, so if they were behind rising CO2 levels, you would expect the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere to drop, which is exactly what the data show .

It’s important to note that water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. However, it does not cause warming; instead it responds to it . That’s because warmer air holds more moisture, which creates a snowball effect in which human-caused warming allows the atmosphere to hold more water vapor and further amplifies climate change. This so-called feedback cycle has doubled the warming caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

A common source of confusion when it comes to climate change is the difference between weather and climate. Weather is the constantly changing set of meteorological conditions that we experience when we step outside, whereas climate is the long-term average of those conditions, usually calculated over a 30-year period. Or, as some say: Weather is your mood and climate is your personality.

So while 2 degrees Fahrenheit doesn’t represent a big change in the weather, it’s a huge change in climate. As we’ve already seen, it’s enough to melt ice and raise sea levels, to shift rainfall patterns around the world and to reorganize ecosystems, sending animals scurrying toward cooler habitats and killing trees by the millions.

It’s also important to remember that two degrees represents the global average, and many parts of the world have already warmed by more than that. For example, land areas have warmed about twice as much as the sea surface. And the Arctic has warmed by about 5 degrees. That’s because the loss of snow and ice at high latitudes allows the ground to absorb more energy, causing additional heating on top of greenhouse warming.

Relatively small long-term changes in climate averages also shift extremes in significant ways. For instance, heat waves have always happened, but they have shattered records in recent years. In June of 2020, a town in Siberia registered temperatures of 100 degrees . And in Australia, meteorologists have added a new color to their weather maps to show areas where temperatures exceed 125 degrees. Rising sea levels have also increased the risk of flooding because of storm surges and high tides. These are the foreshocks of climate change.

And we are in for more changes in the future — up to 9 degrees Fahrenheit of average global warming by the end of the century, in the worst-case scenario . For reference, the difference in global average temperatures between now and the peak of the last ice age, when ice sheets covered large parts of North America and Europe, is about 11 degrees Fahrenheit.

Under the Paris Climate Agreement, which President Biden recently rejoined, countries have agreed to try to limit total warming to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, since preindustrial times. And even this narrow range has huge implications . According to scientific studies, the difference between 2.7 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit will very likely mean the difference between coral reefs hanging on or going extinct, and between summer sea ice persisting in the Arctic or disappearing completely. It will also determine how many millions of people suffer from water scarcity and crop failures, and how many are driven from their homes by rising seas. In other words, one degree Fahrenheit makes a world of difference.

Earth’s climate has always changed. Hundreds of millions of years ago, the entire planet froze . Fifty million years ago, alligators lived in what we now call the Arctic . And for the last 2.6 million years, the planet has cycled between ice ages when the planet was up to 11 degrees cooler and ice sheets covered much of North America and Europe, and milder interglacial periods like the one we’re in now.

Climate denialists often point to these natural climate changes as a way to cast doubt on the idea that humans are causing climate to change today. However, that argument rests on a logical fallacy. It’s like “seeing a murdered body and concluding that people have died of natural causes in the past, so the murder victim must also have died of natural causes,” a team of social scientists wrote in The Debunking Handbook , which explains the misinformation strategies behind many climate myths.

Indeed, we know that different mechanisms caused the climate to change in the past. Glacial cycles, for example, were triggered by periodic variations in Earth’s orbit , which take place over tens of thousands of years and change how solar energy gets distributed around the globe and across the seasons.

These orbital variations don’t affect the planet’s temperature much on their own. But they set off a cascade of other changes in the climate system; for instance, growing or melting vast Northern Hemisphere ice sheets and altering ocean circulation. These changes, in turn, affect climate by altering the amount of snow and ice, which reflect sunlight, and by changing greenhouse gas concentrations. This is actually part of how we know that greenhouse gases have the ability to significantly affect Earth’s temperature.

For at least the last 800,000 years , atmospheric CO2 concentrations oscillated between about 180 parts per million during ice ages and about 280 p.p.m. during warmer periods, as carbon moved between oceans, forests, soils and the atmosphere. These changes occurred in lock step with global temperatures, and are a major reason the entire planet warmed and cooled during glacial cycles, not just the frozen poles.

Today, however, CO2 levels have soared to 420 p.p.m. — the highest they’ve been in at least three million years . The concentration of CO2 is also increasing about 100 times faster than it did at the end of the last ice age. This suggests something else is going on, and we know what it is: Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been burning fossil fuels and releasing greenhouse gases that are heating the planet now (see Question 5 for more details on how we know this, and Questions 4 and 8 for how we know that other natural forces aren’t to blame).

Over the next century or two, societies and ecosystems will experience the consequences of this climate change. But our emissions will have even more lasting geologic impacts: According to some studies, greenhouse gas levels may have already warmed the planet enough to delay the onset of the next glacial cycle for at least an additional 50,000 years.

The sun is the ultimate source of energy in Earth’s climate system, so it’s a natural candidate for causing climate change. And solar activity has certainly changed over time. We know from satellite measurements and other astronomical observations that the sun’s output changes on 11-year cycles. Geologic records and sunspot numbers, which astronomers have tracked for centuries, also show long-term variations in the sun’s activity, including some exceptionally quiet periods in the late 1600s and early 1800s.

We know that, from 1900 until the 1950s, solar irradiance increased. And studies suggest that this had a modest effect on early 20th century climate, explaining up to 10 percent of the warming that’s occurred since the late 1800s. However, in the second half of the century, when the most warming occurred, solar activity actually declined . This disparity is one of the main reasons we know that the sun is not the driving force behind climate change.

Another reason we know that solar activity hasn’t caused recent warming is that, if it had, all the layers of the atmosphere should be heating up. Instead, data show that the upper atmosphere has actually cooled in recent decades — a hallmark of greenhouse warming .

So how about volcanoes? Eruptions cool the planet by injecting ash and aerosol particles into the atmosphere that reflect sunlight. We’ve observed this effect in the years following large eruptions. There are also some notable historical examples, like when Iceland’s Laki volcano erupted in 1783, causing widespread crop failures in Europe and beyond, and the “ year without a summer ,” which followed the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia.

Since volcanoes mainly act as climate coolers, they can’t really explain recent warming. However, scientists say that they may also have contributed slightly to rising temperatures in the early 20th century. That’s because there were several large eruptions in the late 1800s that cooled the planet, followed by a few decades with no major volcanic events when warming caught up. During the second half of the 20th century, though, several big eruptions occurred as the planet was heating up fast. If anything, they temporarily masked some amount of human-caused warming.

The second way volcanoes can impact climate is by emitting carbon dioxide. This is important on time scales of millions of years — it’s what keeps the planet habitable (see Question 5 for more on the greenhouse effect). But by comparison to modern anthropogenic emissions, even big eruptions like Krakatoa and Mount St. Helens are just a drop in the bucket. After all, they last only a few hours or days, while we burn fossil fuels 24-7. Studies suggest that, today, volcanoes account for 1 to 2 percent of total CO2 emissions.

When a big snowstorm hits the United States, climate denialists can try to cite it as proof that climate change isn’t happening. In 2015, Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, famously lobbed a snowball in the Senate as he denounced climate science. But these events don’t actually disprove climate change.

While there have been some memorable storms in recent years, winters are actually warming across the world. In the United States, average temperatures in December, January and February have increased by about 2.5 degrees this century.

On the flip side, record cold days are becoming less common than record warm days. In the United States, record highs now outnumber record lows two-to-one . And ever-smaller areas of the country experience extremely cold winter temperatures . (The same trends are happening globally.)

So what’s with the blizzards? Weather always varies, so it’s no surprise that we still have severe winter storms even as average temperatures rise. However, some studies suggest that climate change may be to blame. One possibility is that rapid Arctic warming has affected atmospheric circulation, including the fast-flowing, high-altitude air that usually swirls over the North Pole (a.k.a. the Polar Vortex ). Some studies suggest that these changes are bringing more frigid temperatures to lower latitudes and causing weather systems to stall , allowing storms to produce more snowfall. This may explain what we’ve experienced in the U.S. over the past few decades, as well as a wintertime cooling trend in Siberia , although exactly how the Arctic affects global weather remains a topic of ongoing scientific debate .

Climate change may also explain the apparent paradox behind some of the other places on Earth that haven’t warmed much. For instance, a splotch of water in the North Atlantic has cooled in recent years, and scientists say they suspect that may be because ocean circulation is slowing as a result of freshwater streaming off a melting Greenland . If this circulation grinds almost to a halt, as it’s done in the geologic past, it would alter weather patterns around the world.

Not all cold weather stems from some counterintuitive consequence of climate change. But it’s a good reminder that Earth’s climate system is complex and chaotic, so the effects of human-caused changes will play out differently in different places. That’s why “global warming” is a bit of an oversimplification. Instead, some scientists have suggested that the phenomenon of human-caused climate change would more aptly be called “ global weirding .”

Extreme weather and natural disasters are part of life on Earth — just ask the dinosaurs. But there is good evidence that climate change has increased the frequency and severity of certain phenomena like heat waves, droughts and floods. Recent research has also allowed scientists to identify the influence of climate change on specific events.

Let’s start with heat waves . Studies show that stretches of abnormally high temperatures now happen about five times more often than they would without climate change, and they last longer, too. Climate models project that, by the 2040s, heat waves will be about 12 times more frequent. And that’s concerning since extreme heat often causes increased hospitalizations and deaths, particularly among older people and those with underlying health conditions. In the summer of 2003, for example, a heat wave caused an estimated 70,000 excess deaths across Europe. (Human-caused warming amplified the death toll .)

Climate change has also exacerbated droughts , primarily by increasing evaporation. Droughts occur naturally because of random climate variability and factors like whether El Niño or La Niña conditions prevail in the tropical Pacific. But some researchers have found evidence that greenhouse warming has been affecting droughts since even before the Dust Bowl . And it continues to do so today. According to one analysis , the drought that afflicted the American Southwest from 2000 to 2018 was almost 50 percent more severe because of climate change. It was the worst drought the region had experienced in more than 1,000 years.

Rising temperatures have also increased the intensity of heavy precipitation events and the flooding that often follows. For example, studies have found that, because warmer air holds more moisture, Hurricane Harvey, which struck Houston in 2017, dropped between 15 and 40 percent more rainfall than it would have without climate change.

It’s still unclear whether climate change is changing the overall frequency of hurricanes, but it is making them stronger . And warming appears to favor certain kinds of weather patterns, like the “ Midwest Water Hose ” events that caused devastating flooding across the Midwest in 2019 .

It’s important to remember that in most natural disasters, there are multiple factors at play. For instance, the 2019 Midwest floods occurred after a recent cold snap had frozen the ground solid, preventing the soil from absorbing rainwater and increasing runoff into the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. These waterways have also been reshaped by levees and other forms of river engineering, some of which failed in the floods.

Wildfires are another phenomenon with multiple causes. In many places, fire risk has increased because humans have aggressively fought natural fires and prevented Indigenous peoples from carrying out traditional burning practices. This has allowed fuel to accumulate that makes current fires worse .

However, climate change still plays a major role by heating and drying forests, turning them into tinderboxes. Studies show that warming is the driving factor behind the recent increases in wildfires; one analysis found that climate change is responsible for doubling the area burned across the American West between 1984 and 2015. And researchers say that warming will only make fires bigger and more dangerous in the future.

It depends on how aggressively we act to address climate change. If we continue with business as usual, by the end of the century, it will be too hot to go outside during heat waves in the Middle East and South Asia . Droughts will grip Central America, the Mediterranean and southern Africa. And many island nations and low-lying areas, from Texas to Bangladesh, will be overtaken by rising seas. Conversely, climate change could bring welcome warming and extended growing seasons to the upper Midwest , Canada, the Nordic countries and Russia . Farther north, however, the loss of snow, ice and permafrost will upend the traditions of Indigenous peoples and threaten infrastructure.

It’s complicated, but the underlying message is simple: unchecked climate change will likely exacerbate existing inequalities . At a national level, poorer countries will be hit hardest, even though they have historically emitted only a fraction of the greenhouse gases that cause warming. That’s because many less developed countries tend to be in tropical regions where additional warming will make the climate increasingly intolerable for humans and crops. These nations also often have greater vulnerabilities, like large coastal populations and people living in improvised housing that is easily damaged in storms. And they have fewer resources to adapt, which will require expensive measures like redesigning cities, engineering coastlines and changing how people grow food.

Already, between 1961 and 2000, climate change appears to have harmed the economies of the poorest countries while boosting the fortunes of the wealthiest nations that have done the most to cause the problem, making the global wealth gap 25 percent bigger than it would otherwise have been. Similarly, the Global Climate Risk Index found that lower income countries — like Myanmar, Haiti and Nepal — rank high on the list of nations most affected by extreme weather between 1999 and 2018. Climate change has also contributed to increased human migration, which is expected to increase significantly .

Even within wealthy countries, the poor and marginalized will suffer the most. People with more resources have greater buffers, like air-conditioners to keep their houses cool during dangerous heat waves, and the means to pay the resulting energy bills. They also have an easier time evacuating their homes before disasters, and recovering afterward. Lower income people have fewer of these advantages, and they are also more likely to live in hotter neighborhoods and work outdoors, where they face the brunt of climate change.

These inequalities will play out on an individual, community, and regional level. A 2017 analysis of the U.S. found that, under business as usual, the poorest one-third of counties, which are concentrated in the South, will experience damages totaling as much as 20 percent of gross domestic product, while others, mostly in the northern part of the country, will see modest economic gains. Solomon Hsiang, an economist at University of California, Berkeley, and the lead author of the study, has said that climate change “may result in the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the country’s history.”

Even the climate “winners” will not be immune from all climate impacts, though. Desirable locations will face an influx of migrants. And as the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated, disasters in one place quickly ripple across our globalized economy. For instance, scientists expect climate change to increase the odds of multiple crop failures occurring at the same time in different places, throwing the world into a food crisis .

On top of that, warmer weather is aiding the spread of infectious diseases and the vectors that transmit them, like ticks and mosquitoes . Research has also identified troubling correlations between rising temperatures and increased interpersonal violence , and climate change is widely recognized as a “threat multiplier” that increases the odds of larger conflicts within and between countries. In other words, climate change will bring many changes that no amount of money can stop. What could help is taking action to limit warming.

One of the most common arguments against taking aggressive action to combat climate change is that doing so will kill jobs and cripple the economy. But this implies that there’s an alternative in which we pay nothing for climate change. And unfortunately, there isn’t. In reality, not tackling climate change will cost a lot , and cause enormous human suffering and ecological damage, while transitioning to a greener economy would benefit many people and ecosystems around the world.

Let’s start with how much it will cost to address climate change. To keep warming well below 2 degrees Celsius, the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement, society will have to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of this century. That will require significant investments in things like renewable energy, electric cars and charging infrastructure, not to mention efforts to adapt to hotter temperatures, rising sea-levels and other unavoidable effects of current climate changes. And we’ll have to make changes fast.

Estimates of the cost vary widely. One recent study found that keeping warming to 2 degrees Celsius would require a total investment of between $4 trillion and $60 trillion, with a median estimate of $16 trillion, while keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius could cost between $10 trillion and $100 trillion, with a median estimate of $30 trillion. (For reference, the entire world economy was about $88 trillion in 2019.) Other studies have found that reaching net zero will require annual investments ranging from less than 1.5 percent of global gross domestic product to as much as 4 percent . That’s a lot, but within the range of historical energy investments in countries like the U.S.

Now, let’s consider the costs of unchecked climate change, which will fall hardest on the most vulnerable. These include damage to property and infrastructure from sea-level rise and extreme weather, death and sickness linked to natural disasters, pollution and infectious disease, reduced agricultural yields and lost labor productivity because of rising temperatures, decreased water availability and increased energy costs, and species extinction and habitat destruction. Dr. Hsiang, the U.C. Berkeley economist, describes it as “death by a thousand cuts.”

As a result, climate damages are hard to quantify. Moody’s Analytics estimates that even 2 degrees Celsius of warming will cost the world $69 trillion by 2100, and economists expect the toll to keep rising with the temperature. In a recent survey , economists estimated the cost would equal 5 percent of global G.D.P. at 3 degrees Celsius of warming (our trajectory under current policies) and 10 percent for 5 degrees Celsius. Other research indicates that, if current warming trends continue, global G.D.P. per capita will decrease between 7 percent and 23 percent by the end of the century — an economic blow equivalent to multiple coronavirus pandemics every year. And some fear these are vast underestimates .

Already, studies suggest that climate change has slashed incomes in the poorest countries by as much as 30 percent and reduced global agricultural productivity by 21 percent since 1961. Extreme weather events have also racked up a large bill. In 2020, in the United States alone, climate-related disasters like hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires caused nearly $100 billion in damages to businesses, property and infrastructure, compared to an average of $18 billion per year in the 1980s.

Given the steep price of inaction, many economists say that addressing climate change is a better deal . It’s like that old saying: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In this case, limiting warming will greatly reduce future damage and inequality caused by climate change. It will also produce so-called co-benefits, like saving one million lives every year by reducing air pollution, and millions more from eating healthier, climate-friendly diets. Some studies even find that meeting the Paris Agreement goals could create jobs and increase global G.D.P . And, of course, reining in climate change will spare many species and ecosystems upon which humans depend — and which many people believe to have their own innate value.

The challenge is that we need to reduce emissions now to avoid damages later, which requires big investments over the next few decades. And the longer we delay, the more we will pay to meet the Paris goals. One recent analysis found that reaching net-zero by 2050 would cost the U.S. almost twice as much if we waited until 2030 instead of acting now. But even if we miss the Paris target, the economics still make a strong case for climate action, because every additional degree of warming will cost us more — in dollars, and in lives.

Veronica Penney contributed reporting.

Illustration photographs by Esther Horvath, Max Whittaker, David Maurice Smith and Talia Herman for The New York Times; Esther Horvath/Alfred-Wegener-Institut

An earlier version of this article misidentified the authors of The Debunking Handbook. It was written by social scientists who study climate communication, not a team of climate scientists.

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10 Big Findings from the 2023 IPCC Report on Climate Change

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March 20 marked the release of the final installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) , an eight-year long undertaking from the world’s most authoritative scientific body on climate change. Drawing on the findings of 234 scientists on the  physical science of climate change , 270 scientists on  impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change , and 278 scientists on  climate change mitigation , this  IPCC synthesis report  provides the most comprehensive, best available scientific assessment of climate change.

It also makes for grim reading. Across nearly 8,000 pages, the AR6 details the devastating consequences of rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions around the world — the destruction of homes, the loss of livelihoods and the fragmentation of communities, for example — as well as the increasingly dangerous and irreversible risks should we fail to change course.

But the IPCC also offers hope, highlighting pathways to avoid these intensifying risks. It identifies readily available, and in some cases, highly cost-effective actions that can be undertaken now to reduce GHG emissions, scale up carbon removal and build resilience. While the window to address the climate crisis is rapidly closing, the IPCC affirms that we can still secure a safe, livable future.

Here are 10 key findings you need to know:

1. Human-induced global warming of 1.1 degrees C has spurred changes to the Earth’s climate that are unprecedented in recent human history.

Already, with 1.1 degrees C (2 degrees F) of global temperature rise, changes to the climate system that are unparalleled over centuries to millennia are now occurring in every region of the world, from rising sea levels to more extreme weather events to rapidly disappearing sea ice.

Additional warming will increase the magnitude of these changes. Every 0.5 degree C (0.9 degrees F) of global temperature rise, for example, will cause clearly discernible increases in the frequency and severity of heat extremes, heavy rainfall events and regional droughts. Similarly, heatwaves that, on average, arose once every 10 years in a climate with little human influence will likely occur 4.1 times more frequently with 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) of warming, 5.6 times with 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) and 9.4 times with 4 degrees C (7.2 degrees F) — and the intensity of these heatwaves will also increase by 1.9 degrees C (3.4 degrees F), 2.6 degrees C (4.7 degrees F) and 5.1 degrees C (9.2 degrees F) respectively.

Rising global temperatures also heighten the probability of reaching dangerous tipping points in the climate system that, once crossed, can trigger self-amplifying feedbacks that further increase global warming, such as thawing permafrost or massive forest dieback. Setting such reinforcing feedbacks in motion can also lead to other substantial, abrupt and irreversible changes to the climate system. Should warming reach between 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) and 3 degrees C (5.4 degrees F), for example, the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets could melt almost completely and irreversibly over many thousands of years, causing sea levels to rise by several meters.

2. Climate impacts on people and ecosystems are more widespread and severe than expected, and future risks will escalate rapidly with every fraction of a degree of warming.

Described as an “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership” by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, one of AR6’s most alarming conclusions is that adverse climate impacts are already more far-reaching and extreme than anticipated. About half of the global population currently contends with severe water scarcity for at least one month per year, while higher temperatures are enabling the spread of vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, West Nile virus and Lyme disease. Climate change has also slowed improvements in agricultural productivity in middle and low latitudes, with crop productivity growth shrinking by a third in Africa since 1961. And since 2008, extreme floods and storms have forced over 20 million people from their homes every year.

Every fraction of a degree of warming will intensify these threats, and even limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degree C is not safe for all. At this level of warming, for example, 950 million people across the world’s drylands will experience water stress, heat stress and desertification, while the share of the global population exposed to flooding will rise by 24%.

Similarly, overshooting 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F), even temporarily, will lead to much more severe, oftentimes irreversible impacts, from local species extinctions to the complete drowning of salt marshes to loss of human lives from increased heat stress. Limiting the magnitude and duration of overshooting 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F), then, will prove critical in ensuring a safe, livable future, as will holding warming to as close to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) or below as possible. Even if this temperature limit is exceeded by the end of the century, the imperative to rapidly curb GHG emissions to avoid higher levels of warming and associated impacts remains unchanged.

3. Adaptation measures can effectively build resilience, but more finance is needed to scale solutions.

Climate policies in at least 170 countries now consider adaptation, but in many nations, these efforts have yet to progress from planning to implementation. Measures to build resilience are still largely small-scale, reactive and incremental, with most focusing on immediate impacts or near-term risks. This disparity between today’s levels of adaptation and those required persists in large part due to limited finance. According to the IPCC, developing countries alone will need $127 billion per year by 2030 and $295 billion per year by 2050 to adapt to climate change. But funds for adaptation reached just $23 billion to $46 billion from 2017 to 2018, accounting for only 4% to 8% of tracked climate finance.

The good news is that the IPCC finds that, with sufficient support, proven and readily available adaptation solutions can build resilience to climate risks and, in many cases, simultaneously deliver broader sustainable development benefits.

Ecosystem-based adaptation, for example, can help communities adapt to impacts that are already devastating their lives and livelihoods, while also safeguarding biodiversity, improving health outcomes, bolstering food security, delivering economic benefits and enhancing carbon sequestration. Many ecosystem-based adaptation measures — including the protection, restoration and sustainable management of ecosystems, as well as more sustainable agricultural practices like integrating trees into farmlands and increasing crop diversity — can be implemented at relatively low costs today. Meaningful collaboration with Indigenous Peoples and local communities is critical to the success of this approach, as is ensuring that ecosystem-based adaptation strategies are designed to account for how future global temperature rise will impact ecosystems.

4. Some climate impacts are already so severe they cannot be adapted to, leading to losses and damages.

Around the world, highly vulnerable people and ecosystems are already struggling to adapt to climate change impacts. For some, these limits are “soft” — effective adaptation measures exist, but economic, political and social obstacles constrain implementation, such as lack of technical support or inadequate funding that does not reach the communities where it’s needed most. But in other regions, people and ecosystems already face or are fast approaching “hard” limits to adaptation, where climate impacts from 1.1 degrees C (2 degrees F) of global warming are becoming so frequent and severe that no existing adaptation strategies can fully avoid losses and damages. Coastal communities in the tropics, for example, have seen entire coral reef systems that once supported their livelihoods and food security experience widespread mortality, while rising sea levels have forced other low-lying neighborhoods to move to higher ground and abandon cultural sites. 

Whether grappling with soft or hard limits to adaptation, the result for vulnerable communities is oftentimes irreversible and devastating. Such losses and damages will only escalate as the world warms. Beyond 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) of global temperature rise, for example, regions reliant on snow and glacial melt will likely experience water shortages to which they cannot adapt. At 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F), the risk of concurrent maize production failures across important growing regions will rise dramatically. And above 3 degrees C (5.4 degrees F), dangerously high summertime heat will threaten the health of communities in parts of southern Europe.

Urgent action is needed to avert, minimize and address these losses and damages. At COP27, countries took a critical step forward by agreeing to establish funding arrangements for loss and damage, including a dedicated fund. While this represents  a historic breakthrough  in the climate negotiations, countries must now figure out the details of what these funding arrangements, as well as the new fund , will look like in practice — and it’s these details that will ultimately determine the adequacy, accessibility, additionality and predictability of these financial flows to those experiencing loss and damage.

5. Global GHG emissions peak before 2025 in 1.5 degrees C-aligned pathways.

The IPCC finds that there is a more than 50% chance that global temperature rise will reach or surpass 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) between 2021 and 2040 across studied scenarios, and under a high-emissions pathway, specifically, the world may hit this threshold even sooner — between 2018 and 2037. Global temperature rise in such a carbon-intensive scenario could also increase to 3.3 degrees C to 5.7 degrees C (5.9 degrees F to 10.3 degrees F) by 2100. To put this projected amount of warming into perspective, the last time global temperatures exceeded 2.5 degrees C (4.5 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels was more than 3 million years ago.

Changing course to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) — with no or limited overshoot — will instead require deep GHG emissions reductions in the near-term. In modelled pathways that limit global warming to this goal, GHG emissions peak immediately and before 2025 at the latest. They then drop rapidly, declining 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035, relative to 2019 levels.

While there are some bright spots — the annual growth rate of GHG emissions slowed from an average of 2.1% per year between 2000 and 2009 to 1.3% per year between 2010 and 2019, for example — global progress in mitigating climate change remains woefully off track. GHG emissions have climbed steadily over the past decade, reaching 59 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) in 2019 — approximately 12% higher than in 2010 and 54% greater than in 1990.

Even if countries achieved their climate pledges (also known as nationally determined contributions or NDCs),  WRI research  finds that they would reduce GHG emissions by just 7% from 2019 levels by 2030, in contrast to the 43% associated with limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F). And while handful of countries have submitted  new or enhanced NDCs  since the IPCC’s cut-off date,  more recent analysis  that takes these submissions into account finds that these commitments collectively still fall short of closing this emissions gap.

6. The world must rapidly shift away from burning fossil fuels — the number one cause of the climate crisis.

In pathways limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) with no or limited overshoot just a net 510 GtCO2 can be emitted before carbon dioxide emissions reach net zero in the early 2050s. Yet future carbon dioxide emissions from existing and planned fossil fuel infrastructure alone could surpass that limit by 340 GtCO2, reaching 850 GtCO2.

A mix of strategies can help avoid  locking in  these emissions, including retiring existing fossil fuel infrastructure, canceling new projects, retrofitting fossil-fueled power plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies and scaling up renewable energy sources like solar and wind (which are now cheaper than fossil fuels in many regions).

In pathways that limit warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) — with no or limited overshoot — for example, global use of coal falls by 95% by 2050, oil declines by about 60% and gas by about 45%. These figures assume significant use of abatement technologies like CCS, and without them, these same pathways show much steeper declines by mid-century. Global use of coal without CCS, for example, is virtually phased out by 2050.

Although coal-fired power plants are starting to be retired across Europe and the United States, some multilateral development banks continue to invest in new coal capacity. Failure to change course risks stranding assets worth trillions of dollars.

7. We also need urgent, systemwide transformations to secure a net-zero, climate-resilient future.

While fossil fuels are the number one source of GHG emissions, deep emission cuts are necessary across all of society to combat the climate crisis. Power generation, buildings, industry, and transport are responsible for close to 80% of global emissions while agriculture, forestry and other land uses account for the remainder.

Take the  transport system , for instance. Drastically cutting emissions will require urban planning that minimizes the need for travel, as well as the build-out of shared, public and nonmotorized transport, such as rapid transit and bicycling in cities. Such a transformation will also entail increasing the supply of electric passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles and buses, coupled with wide-scale installation of rapid-charging infrastructure, investments in zero-carbon fuels for shipping and aviation and more.

Policy measures that make these changes less disruptive can help accelerate needed transitions, such as subsidizing zero-carbon technologies and taxing high-emissions technologies like fossil-fueled cars. Infrastructure design — like reallocating street space for sidewalks or bike lanes — can help people transition to lower-emissions lifestyles. It is important to note there are many co-benefits that accompany these transformations, too. Minimizing the number of passenger vehicles on the road, in this example, reduces harmful local air pollution and cuts traffic-related crashes and deaths.

Systems Change Lab  monitors, learns from and mobilizes action to achieve the far-reaching transformational shifts needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C, halt biodiversity loss and build a just and equitable economy.

Transformative adaptation measures, too, are critical for securing a more prosperous future. The IPCC emphasizes the importance of ensuring that adaptation measures drive systemic change, cut across sectors and are distributed equitably across at-risk regions. The good news is that there are oftentimes strong synergies between transformational mitigation and adaptation. For example, in the global food system, climate-smart agriculture practices like shifting to  agroforestry  can improve resilience to climate impacts, while simultaneously advancing mitigation.  

8. Carbon removal is now essential to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C.

Deep decarbonization across all systems while building resilience won’t be enough to achieve global climate goals, though. The IPCC finds that all pathways that limit warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) — with no or limited overshoot — depend on some quantity of  carbon removal . These approaches encompass both natural solutions, such as sequestering and storing carbon in trees and soil, as well as more nascent technologies that pull carbon dioxide directly from the air.

Hover over each carbon removal approach to learn more:

Note: This figure includes carbon removal approaches mentioned in countries' long-term climate strategies as well as other leading proposed approaches. Note: The natural vs. technological categorization shown here is illustrative rather than definitive and will vary depending on how approaches are applied, particularly for carbon removal approaches in the ocean.

The amount of carbon removal required depends on how quickly we reduce GHG emissions across other systems and the extent to which climate targets are overshot, with estimates ranging from between 5 GtCO2 to 16 GtCO2 per year needed by mid-century.

All carbon removal approaches have merits and drawbacks. Reforestation, for instance, represents a readily available, relatively low-cost strategy that, when implemented appropriately, can deliver a wide range of benefits to communities. Yet the carbon stored within these ecosystems is also vulnerable to disturbances like wildfires, which may increase in frequency and severity with additional warming. And, while technologies like bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) may offer a more permanent solution, such approaches also risk displacing croplands, and in doing so, threatening food security. Responsibly researching, developing and deploying emerging carbon removal technologies, alongside existing natural approaches, will therefore require careful understanding of each solution’s unique benefits, costs and risks.

9. Climate finance for both mitigation and adaptation must increase dramatically this decade.

The IPCC finds that public and private finance flows for fossil fuels today far surpass those directed toward climate mitigation and adaptation. Thus, while annual public and private climate finance has risen by upwards of 60% since the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, much more is still required to achieve global climate change goals. For instance, climate finance will need to increase between 3 and 6 times by 2030 to achieve mitigation goals, alone.

This gap is widest in developing countries, particularly those already struggling with debt, poor credit ratings and economic burdens from the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent mitigation investments, for example, need to increase by at least sixfold in Southeast Asia and developing countries in the Pacific, fivefold in Africa and fourteenfold in the Middle East by 2030 to hold warming below 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F). And across sectors, this shortfall is most pronounced for agriculture, forestry and other land use, where recent financial flows are 10 to 31 times below what is required to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals.

Finance for adaptation, as well as loss and damage, will also need to rise dramatically. Developing countries, for example, will need $127 billion per year by 2030 and $295 billion per year by 2050. While AR6 does not assess countries’ needs for finance to avert, minimize and address losses and damages,  recent estimates  suggest that they will be substantial in the coming decades. Current funds for both fall well below estimated needs, with the highest estimates of adaptation finance totaling under $50 billion per year.

10. Climate change — as well as our collective efforts to adapt to and mitigate it — will exacerbate inequity should we fail to ensure a just transition.  

Households with incomes in the top 10%, including a relatively large share in developed countries, emit upwards of 45% of the world's GHGs, while those families earning in the bottom 50% account for 15% at most. Yet the effects of climate change already — and will continue to — hit poorer, historically marginalized communities the hardest.

Today, between 3.3 billion and 3.6 billion people live in countries that are highly vulnerable to climate impacts, with global hotspots concentrated in the Arctic, Central and South America, Small Island Developing states, South Asia and much of sub-Saharan Africa. Across many countries in these regions, conflict, existing inequalities and development challenges (e.g., poverty and limited access to basic services like clean water) not only heighten sensitivity to climate hazards, but also limit communities’ capacity to adapt.  Mortality from storms, floods and droughts, for instance, was 15 times higher in countries with high vulnerability to climate change than in those with very low vulnerability from 2010 to 2020.

At the same time, efforts to mitigate climate change also risk disruptive changes and exacerbating inequity. Retiring coal-fired power plants, for instance, may displace workers, harm local economies and reconfigure the social fabric of communities, while inappropriately implemented efforts to halt deforestation could heighten poverty and intensify food insecurity. And certain climate policies, such as  carbon taxes  that raise the cost of emissions-intensive goods like gasoline, can also prove to be regressive, absent of efforts to recycle the revenues raised from these taxes back into programs that benefit low-income communities.

Fortunately, the IPCC identifies a range of measures that can support a just transition and help ensure that no one is left behind as the world moves toward a net-zero-emissions, climate-resilient future. Reconfiguring social protection programs (e.g., cash transfers, public works programs and social safety nets) to include adaptation, for example, can reduce communities’ vulnerability to a wide range of future climate impacts, while strengthening justice and equity. Such programs are particularly effective when paired with efforts to expand access to infrastructure and basic services.

Similarly, policymakers can design mitigation strategies to better distribute the costs and benefits of reducing GHG emissions. Governments can pair efforts to phase out coal-fired electricity generation, for instance, with subsidized job retraining programs that support workers in developing the skills needed to secure new, high-quality jobs. Or, in another example, officials can couple policy interventions dedicated to expanding access to public transit with interventions to improve access to nearby, affordable housing.

Across both mitigation and adaptation measures, inclusive, transparent and participatory decision-making processes will play a central role in ensuring a just transition. More specifically, these forums can help cultivate public trust, deepen public support for transformative climate action and avoid unintended consequences.

Looking Ahead

The IPCC’s AR6 makes clear that risks of inaction on climate are immense and the way ahead requires change at a scale not seen before. However, this report also serves as a reminder that we have never had more information about the gravity of the climate emergency and its cascading impacts — or about what needs to be done to reduce intensifying risks.

Limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) is still possible, but only if we act immediately. As the IPCC makes clear, the world needs to peak GHG emissions before 2025 at the very latest, nearly halve GHG emissions by 2030 and reach net-zero CO2 emissions around mid-century, while also ensuring a just and equitable transition. We’ll also need an all-hands-on-deck approach to guarantee that communities experiencing increasingly harmful impacts of the climate crisis have the resources they need to adapt to this new world. Governments, the private sector, civil society and individuals must all step up to keep the future we desire in sight. A narrow window of opportunity is still open, but there’s not one second to waste.

Note: In addition to showcasing findings from the IPCC’s AR6 Synthesis Report, this article also draws on previous articles detailing the IPCC’s findings on  the physical science of climate change ,  impacts, adaption and vulnerability ,  and  climate change mitigation .

Relevant Work

6 takeaways from the 2022 ipcc climate change mitigation report, 6 big findings from the ipcc 2022 report on climate impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, 5 big findings from the ipcc’s 2021 climate report, 8 things you need to know about the ipcc 1.5˚c report.

Join us on March 23 for a high-level webinar featuring IPCC authors, government representatives and leading carbon removal experts to discuss how carbon removal is a critical tool in our toolbox to address the climate crisis.

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Ask NASA Climate

Ask nasa climate | december 10, 2011, 16:00 pst, conclusions and reflections, eleventh-hour agreement.

By Dr. Erika Podest, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory From the UN conference on climate change, Durban, South Africa

It is not until the eleventh hour — on Sunday at 6:00 am — that negotiations come to a close. An agreement has been made to develop a roadmap towards a new legally binding treaty by 2015, which would come into force in 2020. In addition, the decision has been made to adopt a second commitment period on the Kyoto Protocol — the only global pact that enforces carbon cuts — producing a five-to-seven-year extension of the current protocol, which was set to expire in 2012.

In addition, the “Green Climate Fund” was launched, which is intended to channel money to developing countries to help with their mitigation and adaptation efforts. However, it is unclear where the funding will come from. A second factor that is important to developing countries is technology transfer, and it was agreed that a technology mechanism would be fully operational by 2012 to “promote and enhance the research, development and deployment and diffusion of environmentally-sound technologies for mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.”

The REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) program, a collaborative effort between countries to reduce heat-trapping carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, has probably been the biggest success story. Though agreements are in place, there are still many details to be worked out such as reference emissions levels, validation and funding, but at least there is a path forward for further discussions on fleshing out those details.

Looking back, this conference is probably the most important climate change gathering of our time with the whole world represented at COP17. At the very least, I would describe it as an explosion of thoughts — with the main concerns across the board being food security, water shortage, loss of biodiversity, population displacement and an increase of climate change refugees, ecological degradation, human well-being, planetary thresholds, climate, energy, governance across scales, and poverty alleviation.

My overall feeling is of awkward content that something happened (given the alternative) but also of great disappointment that more tangible results were not reached and that there is a lack of understanding behind the sense of urgency about climate change. No obligation for any nation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions until 2020 is not good enough, and that is of course, assuming that future UN deliberations flow smoothly and a global deal is reached with binding commitments. My concern is that by the time politics finally reaches a consensus to limit climate change, the climate change train will already have left the station.

Though the whole process is clearly far from perfect, it is unfortunately the only mechanism in place that rallies the international community towards addressing the effects of climate change. Ultimately, it is the scientific community that must deliver to society what we know about climate change and the risks humanity is facing in the short- and long-term. Even though I am disappointed that results from the negotiations were not more forthcoming, I leave encouraged knowing that I and the NASA community help provide the latest scientific evidence for a comprehensive update of our knowledge of Earth systems and the pressures they are under. It is this science that sets the stage for meetings like this one in South Africa and NASA, through its capability to study Earth from space, is uniquely positioned to help understand and monitor processes at national, regional, and global scales in unprecedented ways.

Even though my week was absorbed with COP17, I would not do this blog justice without mention of Durban, a relaxed and beautiful beachside city of three million people. It was obvious that South Africa and the city of Durban went to great efforts to host the conference. I was impressed by how well the event was organized and how well the city hosted and welcomed COP17 participants. Durban’s most precious asset is its people, cheerful, helpful and always sharing their warm smiles.

Finally, I am very grateful to have had this opportunity and I am particularly thankful to Jack Kaye and Duane Waliser for making it possible. I am also very grateful to Riley Duren and Tony Freeman for their advice and guidance, to Winnie Humberson for helping with logistics and preparation, to Eric Sokolowsky for being the whizz behind the Hyperwall, and to Amber Jenkins for being the magician behind this blog. A special thanks to the very friendly and professional staff from the U.S. State Department. Last but not least, to all of you who have followed my blog entries, thanks for reading!

Erika Podest is a scientist with the Water and Carbon Cycles Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and a Visiting Associate Researcher in the Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering (JIFRESSE) at UCLA. She focuses on using space satellites to monitor wetland ecosystems and seasonal freeze/thaw dynamics in the northern high latitudes of the globe, and improving our understanding of Earth’s water and carbon cycles and resources. Erika also leads a project that uses satellite data to study the palm swamp wetlands of the Amazon rainforest in order to better understand their contribution to the global carbon budget.

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• Published: November 2008
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The ‘Conclusion’ confirms that global warming is the major challenge for our global society. There is very little doubt that global warming will change our climate in the next century. So what are the solutions to global warming? First, there must be an international political solution. Second, funding for developing cheap and clean energy production must be increased, as all economic development is based on increasing energy usage. We must not pin all our hopes on global politics and clean energy technology, so we must prepare for the worst and adapt. If implemented now, a lot of the costs and damage that could be caused by changing climate can be mitigated.

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Climate change.

Climate change is a long-term shift in global or regional climate patterns. Often climate change refers specifically to the rise in global temperatures from the mid-20th century to present.

Earth Science, Climatology

Fracking tower

Fracking is a controversial form of drilling that uses high-pressure liquid to create cracks in underground shale to extract natural gas and petroleum. Carbon emissions from fossils fuels like these have been linked to global warming and climate change.

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Climate is sometimes mistaken for weather. But climate is different from weather because it is measured over a long period of time, whereas weather can change from day to day, or from year to year. The climate of an area includes seasonal temperature and rainfall averages, and wind patterns. Different places have different climates. A desert, for example, is referred to as an arid climate because little water falls, as rain or snow, during the year. Other types of climate include tropical climates, which are hot and humid , and temperate climates, which have warm summers and cooler winters.

Climate change is the long-term alteration of temperature and typical weather patterns in a place. Climate change could refer to a particular location or the planet as a whole. Climate change may cause weather patterns to be less predictable. These unexpected weather patterns can make it difficult to maintain and grow crops in regions that rely on farming because expected temperature and rainfall levels can no longer be relied on. Climate change has also been connected with other damaging weather events such as more frequent and more intense hurricanes, floods, downpours, and winter storms.

In polar regions, the warming global temperatures associated with climate change have meant ice sheets and glaciers are melting at an accelerated rate from season to season. This contributes to sea levels rising in different regions of the planet. Together with expanding ocean waters due to rising temperatures, the resulting rise in sea level has begun to damage coastlines as a result of increased flooding and erosion.

The cause of current climate change is largely human activity, like burning fossil fuels , like natural gas, oil, and coal. Burning these materials releases what are called greenhouse gases into Earth’s atmosphere . There, these gases trap heat from the sun’s rays inside the atmosphere causing Earth’s average temperature to rise. This rise in the planet's temperature is called global warming. The warming of the planet impacts local and regional climates. Throughout Earth's history, climate has continually changed. When occuring naturally, this is a slow process that has taken place over hundreds and thousands of years. The human influenced climate change that is happening now is occuring at a much faster rate.

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What Is Climate Change?

Climate change is a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates. These changes have a broad range of observed effects that are synonymous with the term.

Changes observed in Earth’s climate since the mid-20th century are driven by human activities, particularly fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere, raising Earth’s average surface temperature. Natural processes, which have been overwhelmed by human activities, can also contribute to climate change, including internal variability (e.g., cyclical ocean patterns like El Niño, La Niña and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation) and external forcings (e.g., volcanic activity, changes in the Sun’s energy output , variations in Earth’s orbit ).

Scientists use observations from the ground, air, and space, along with computer models , to monitor and study past, present, and future climate change. Climate data records provide evidence of climate change key indicators, such as global land and ocean temperature increases; rising sea levels; ice loss at Earth’s poles and in mountain glaciers; frequency and severity changes in extreme weather such as hurricanes, heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and precipitation; and cloud and vegetation cover changes.

“Climate change” and “global warming” are often used interchangeably but have distinct meanings. Similarly, the terms "weather" and "climate" are sometimes confused, though they refer to events with broadly different spatial- and timescales.

What Is Global Warming?

Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth’s surface observed since the pre-industrial period (between 1850 and 1900) due to human activities, primarily fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere. This term is not interchangeable with the term "climate change."

Since the pre-industrial period, human activities are estimated to have increased Earth’s global average temperature by about 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), a number that is currently increasing by more than 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade. The current warming trend is unequivocally the result of human activity since the 1950s and is proceeding at an unprecedented rate over millennia.

Weather vs. Climate

“if you don’t like the weather in new england, just wait a few minutes.” - mark twain.

Weather refers to atmospheric conditions that occur locally over short periods of time—from minutes to hours or days. Familiar examples include rain, snow, clouds, winds, floods, or thunderstorms.

Climate, on the other hand, refers to the long-term (usually at least 30 years) regional or even global average of temperature, humidity, and rainfall patterns over seasons, years, or decades.

Find Out More: A Guide to NASA’s Global Climate Change Website

This website provides a high-level overview of some of the known causes, effects and indications of global climate change:

Evidence. Brief descriptions of some of the key scientific observations that our planet is undergoing abrupt climate change.

Causes. A concise discussion of the primary climate change causes on our planet.

Effects. A look at some of the likely future effects of climate change, including U.S. regional effects.

Vital Signs. Graphs and animated time series showing real-time climate change data, including atmospheric carbon dioxide, global temperature, sea ice extent, and ice sheet volume.

Earth Minute. This fun video series explains various Earth science topics, including some climate change topics.

Other NASA Resources

Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio. An extensive collection of animated climate change and Earth science visualizations.

Sea Level Change Portal. NASA's portal for an in-depth look at the science behind sea level change.

NASA’s Earth Observatory. Satellite imagery, feature articles and scientific information about our home planet, with a focus on Earth’s climate and environmental change.

Header image is of Apusiaajik Glacier, and was taken near Kulusuk, Greenland, on Aug. 26, 2018, during NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) field operations. Learn more here . Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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• Published: 10 May 2024

Talking about climate change and health

Nature Climate Change volume  14 ,  page 409 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Climate change
• Environmental social sciences
• Public health

The climate crisis is also an urgent and ongoing health crisis with diverse human impacts leading to physical, mental and cultural losses. Translating knowledge into action involves broad collaboration, which relies heavily on careful communication of a personal and politicized issue.

Against a backdrop of reported historical peaks in monthly temperatures, the past months have seen increasing visibility of the issue of climate change health, as several institutions have pushed awareness, research and action to limit the effects that warming has on human health. These include the inaugural Declaration on Climate and Health at COP28, the publication of the report Quantifying the Impact of Climate Change on Human Health 1 by the World Economic Forum, and a pledge of £23 million by the Wellcome Trust to support transdisciplinary research to protect human health from climate change.

In this issue of Nature Climate Change and an associated online Focus , we highlight research and other content at the climate–health intersection.

Across these works, a clear and familiar theme that arises is the world’s current lack of preparation to deal with the ongoing crisis. This is exemplified in an Analysis by Braithwaite and colleagues of the ability of healthcare systems to cope with climate change. In line with the World Economic Forum’s finding that climate impacts will cost healthcare systems a further US$1.1 trillion globally by 2050 (ref. 1 ), Braithwaite and colleagues highlight the need for multi-pronged plans to future-proof these at-risk systems. They also demonstrate the heavy bias of current research on acute disaster events and in the Global North.

The second conspicuous theme is that responding to the climate–health crisis will involve diverse actors. In a Viewpoint article, six researchers highlight key issues in their fields, which include mental health, labour, disease spread, maternal and neonatal health, air quality and nutrition, while advocating the need for collaboration across disciplines, sectors and geography. Echoing this need for collaboration, a Feature article by Yessenia Funes on the public drive to seek climate action through the courts focuses on the varied yet complementary roles the public, research scientists, healthcare professionals and lawyers have to play.

Thirdly, and critically linked to the previous points, is that improved communication is key for translating research into action. Part of this involves learning the languages of different fields or sectors: in a Q&A article, Maria Neira, director of the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health at the World Health Organization (WHO), describes how understanding that the climate terms ‘adaptation’ and ‘mitigation’ corresponded to the terms ‘primary intervention’ and ‘secondary intervention’ in public health helped to align communication between the two fields. Another part also involves ensuring that language is used carefully to support positive action. Psychologist Elizabeth Marks (writing in the Viewpoint article) discusses the importance of identifying eco-anxiety without pathologizing it, while Neira discusses the impact of communicating a negative message (that is, climate change is harming human health) with or without actionable plans, underscoring the difference between problem solving and panic. Funes also highlights the important role of health practitioners, whose personal relationships with patients makes them ‘trusted messengers’ to discuss climate change health information. In line with this, the WHO has just released a new toolkit to support healthcare professionals to effectively communicate about climate change and health 2 . A Comment from Noa Heiman in this issue also discusses the best ways for therapists to support their clients who experience climate distress.

Overall, talking about climate change health is not just a question of slipping from the technical jargon of climate models to that of healthcare or legal systems. It is also about communicating with an increasingly engaged public on a deeply personal and politicized issue. Finding the right wording is therefore extremely important. But the personal part of health is also what makes discussing climate change from a health point of view such a powerful tool to move forward.

An ongoing global crisis lacking preparedness that requires multiple actors to move forward can leave a lot of room for debate. But as Neira suggests, if instead of talking only about reducing emissions or limiting the amount of degrees warming, we discuss the number of lives that can be saved, there is less room for discussion, and more room to translate words into action.

Quantifying the Impact of Climate Change on Human Health (World Economic Forum, 2024).

WHO launches new toolkit empowering health professionals to tackle climate change. WHO (22 March 2024); https://go.nature.com/3w1i7yO

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Talking about climate change and health. Nat. Clim. Chang. 14 , 409 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02020-3

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What Is Climate Change?

Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Such shifts can be natural, due to changes in the sun’s activity or large volcanic eruptions. But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change , primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

Burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures.

The main greenhouse gases that are causing climate change include carbon dioxide and methane. These come from using gasoline for driving a car or coal for heating a building, for example. Clearing land and cutting down forests can also release carbon dioxide. Agriculture, oil and gas operations are major sources of methane emissions. Energy, industry, transport, buildings, agriculture and land use are among the main sectors  causing greenhouse gases.

Humans are responsible for global warming

Climate scientists have showed that humans are responsible for virtually all global heating over the last 200 years. Human activities like the ones mentioned above are causing greenhouse gases that are warming the world faster than at any time in at least the last two thousand years.

The average temperature of the Earth’s surface is now about 1.2°C warmer than it was in the late 1800s (before the industrial revolution) and warmer than at any time in the last 100,000 years. The last decade (2011-2020) was the warmest on record , and each of the last four decades has been warmer than any previous decade since 1850.

Many people think climate change mainly means warmer temperatures. But temperature rise is only the beginning of the story. Because the Earth is a system, where everything is connected, changes in one area can influence changes in all others.

The consequences of climate change now include, among others, intense droughts, water scarcity, severe fires, rising sea levels, flooding, melting polar ice, catastrophic storms and declining biodiversity.

People are experiencing climate change in diverse ways

Climate change can affect our health , ability to grow food, housing, safety and work. Some of us are already more vulnerable to climate impacts, such as people living in small island nations and other developing countries. Conditions like sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion have advanced to the point where whole communities have had to relocate, and protracted droughts are putting people at risk of famine. In the future, the number of people displaced by weather-related events is expected to rise.

Every increase in global warming matters

In a series of UN reports , thousands of scientists and government reviewers agreed that limiting global temperature rise to no more than 1.5°C would help us avoid the worst climate impacts and maintain a livable climate. Yet policies currently in place point to a 3°C temperature rise by the end of the century.

The emissions that cause climate change come from every part of the world and affect everyone, but some countries produce much more than others .The seven biggest emitters alone (China, the United States of America, India, the European Union, Indonesia, the Russian Federation, and Brazil) accounted for about half of all global greenhouse gas emissions in 2020.

Everyone must take climate action, but people and countries creating more of the problem have a greater responsibility to act first.

We face a huge challenge but already know many solutions

Many climate change solutions can deliver economic benefits while improving our lives and protecting the environment. We also have global frameworks and agreements to guide progress, such as the Sustainable Development Goals , the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement . Three broad categories of action are: cutting emissions, adapting to climate impacts and financing required adjustments.

Switching energy systems from fossil fuels to renewables like solar or wind will reduce the emissions driving climate change. But we have to act now. While a growing number of countries is committing to net zero emissions by 2050, emissions must be cut in half by 2030 to keep warming below 1.5°C. Achieving this means huge declines in the use of coal, oil and gas: over two-thirds of today’s proven reserves of fossil fuels need to be kept in the ground by 2050 in order to prevent catastrophic levels of climate change.

Adapting to climate consequences protects people, homes, businesses, livelihoods, infrastructure and natural ecosystems. It covers current impacts and those likely in the future. Adaptation will be required everywhere, but must be prioritized now for the most vulnerable people with the fewest resources to cope with climate hazards. The rate of return can be high. Early warning systems for disasters, for instance, save lives and property, and can deliver benefits up to 10 times the initial cost.

We can pay the bill now, or pay dearly in the future

Climate action requires significant financial investments by governments and businesses. But climate inaction is vastly more expensive. One critical step is for industrialized countries to fulfil their commitment to provide $100 billion a year to developing countries so they can adapt and move towards greener economies.

To get familiar with some of the more technical terms used in connection with climate change, consult the Climate Dictionary .

Learn more about…

The facts on climate and energy

Climate change is a hot topic – with myths and falsehoods circulating widely. Find some essential facts here .

The science

See the latest climate reports from the United Nations as well as climate action facts .

Causes and Effects

Fossil fuels are by far the largest contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, which poses many risks to all forms of life on Earth. Learn more .

From the Secretary-General

Read the UN Chief’s latest statements on climate action.

What is net zero? Why is it important? Our  net-zero page  explains why we need steep emissions cuts now and what efforts are underway.

Renewable energy – powering a safer future

What is renewable energy and why does it matter? Learn more about why the shift to renewables is our only hope for a brighter and safer world.

How will the world foot the bill? We explain the issues and the value of financing climate action.

What is climate adaptation? Why is it so important for every country? Find out how we can protect lives and livelihoods as the climate changes.

Climate Issues

Learn more about how climate change impacts are felt across different sectors and ecosystems.

Why women are key to climate action

Women and girls are on the frontlines of the climate crisis and uniquely situated to drive action. Find out why it’s time to invest in women.

Facts and figures

• What is climate change?
• Causes and effects
• Myth busters

Cutting emissions

• Explaining net zero
• High-level expert group on net zero
• Checklists for credibility of net-zero pledges
• Greenwashing
• What you can do

Clean energy

• Renewable energy – key to a safer future
• What is renewable energy
• Five ways to speed up the energy transition
• Why invest in renewable energy
• Clean energy stories
• A just transition

Adapting to climate change

• Climate adaptation
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• Youth voices

Financing climate action

• Finance and justice
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• Why finance climate action
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Yale Environment Review (YER) is a student-run review that provides weekly updates on environmental research findings.

You’re concerned about climate change: do your choices make an impact.

Why have individuals been slow to reduce their carbon footprint even when they have the financial resources and willingness to do so?Many of our assumptions around environmental responsibility fallshort of making immediate and meaningful change. Still, new research guides us with a framework to decide on individual, corporate, and governmental climate action.

By Enar Leferink • May 17, 2024

Akenji, Lewis, Magnus Bengtsson, Viivi Toivio, Michael Lettenmeier, Tina Fawcett, Yael Parag, Yamina Saheb, et al.  1.5–Degree Lifestyles: Towards A Fair Consumption Space for All , 2022.

Heinonen, Jukka, Sarah Olson, Michal Czepkiewicz, Áróra Árnadóttir, and Juudit Ottelin. “Too Much Consumption or Too High Emissions Intensities? Explaining the High Consumption-Based Carbon Footprints in the Nordic Countries.”  Environmental Research Communications  4, no. 12 (December 2022): 125007. https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7620/aca871 .

Leferink, Enar Kornelius, Jukka Heinonen, Sanna Ala-Mantila, and Áróra Árnadóttir. “Climate Concern Elasticity of Carbon Footprint.”  Environmental Research Communications  5, no. 7 (July 2023): 075003. https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7620/acda80 .

The  climate movement discourse has shifted  from focusing almost exclusively on individual action to prioritizing systemic remedies at the societal, corporate, and policy levels. Organizations originally placed most of the burden on individuals to reduce pollution. The climate movement now primarily assigns responsibility for climate change to corporations and governments. This shift towards corporate responsibility, for instance, is evident in our discourse around recycling. While organizations once primarily made properly sorting recycling an individual obligation, it is now clear that recycling has minimal impacts on emission reduction, no matter how precise the sorting effort is. Furthermore, even when community members sort their trash, only a fraction is recycled. This trash crisis is a systemic failure, not an individual one. Such shortcomings have increased individual’s frustration with slow progress toward sustainability goals. Even though the  climate movement has started noting  that individual power is only secondary to the economic system, which is the real problem, new research shows that, until the government makes systemic changes, short-term individual action is still vital during the transition phase.

To keep global warming below the 2 °C limit set in the  Paris Agreement , we must considerably reduce the average carbon footprint per individual  by 2030 . However, the obligation to reduce emissions lies primarily among more affluent countries with high per-capita emissions.  Scholars estimate  that if the wealthiest 10% of individuals reduced their carbon footprint by 90%, the poorest half could increase their carbon footprint two or three-fold without exceeding the targets set in the Paris Agreement. Two recent papers published in  Environmental Research Communications  investigate how to reduce the carbon footprint of the wealthiest. The authors in both papers focus on the Nordic countries, which are among the most affluent countries and have a range of high per-capita emissions because they emit multiple times the global average of greenhouse gases. Researchers of both papers set out to identify lifestyle elements that people can alter to reduce average footprints in Nordic countries immediately. The  first paper  is a collaboration of Nordic and Polish researchers led by Jukka Heinonen. This research analyzes the effects of different consumption choices on footprints. They identify that people must institute drastic lifestyle changes simultaneously to reach the Paris Agreement’s goal. 

With the current state of industry and governments, drastic and immediate reductions in consumption are needed from Nordic people to reach a footprint low enough for the Paris Agreement.  Heinonen and his team  show that lifestyles must change in multiple areas simultaneously. For example, it is not enough for someone to sell their car and become vegan. A person would also need to stop flying to reduce their carbon footprint below the Paris Agreement’s limit in carbon footprint. Such substantive requirements to meet reduction goals illustrate that we must fundamentally change our lifestyles to follow the Paris Agreement’s accords. Therefore, if individuals want to keep their core lifestyle characteristics the same, corporations must follow suit and make these lifestyles more sustainable.

Building upon these results, the researchers of the  second paper  investigate whether people who care about the environment pollute less.  The authors found  a noticeable difference in how caring for the environment relates to pollution in different types of consumption. From these findings, we can learn which policy changes are more or less critical in the short term.

The  second paper  suggests that the methodology used by researchers in the past has mistakenly led to the conclusion that income and carbon footprint are substantially related. Intuitively, if you have more income, you generally consume more. This intuition has inspired many scientists to analyze income and carbon footprint relationships. However, the traditional method to calculate this relationship assumes the average emission per dollar spent in a category. Imagine two passengers on the same flight from New York to LA. One paid $200 for their ticket and the other $400. Logically, they have the same carbon footprint from the flight, but the latter would cause twice the emissions according to the old methodology. When you spend money on a good, it is hard to imagine all the steps that went into making it—the materials extracted and altered, energy use and labor, and the cost of transportation. A thoughtful analysis must incorporate each step’s effect without relying too generously on the assumption that expenditure and emissions are inherently related.

Improving upon these traditional methods, the researchers used unique survey data on pro-climate attitudes . They found that people with higher incomes only sometimes pollute much more, and those who care more about the environment have relatively low emissions.  The data shows  that those with 10% higher incomes pollute around 2.2% more, and those with 10% higher concern for climate change pollute about 2.1% less. What’s more, there is a considerable difference between types of consumption. In particular, people with pro-climate attitudes are likely to eat less meat, use less heating, and use more public transportation. Counterintuitively, however, they fly much more. People who are 10% more concerned fly around 27.1% more. But most notably, although those with higher incomes consume more goods and services, people consume the same amount of goods and services no matter how much they care about climate change. Manufacturers may need to drive reduced emissions since those more concerned do not compromise buying goods and services. The results suggest that in other spheres, such as food, heating, and transportation, changes could be driven by personal motivation. Even with the potential for these actions to reduce carbon emissions,  people rarely make these low-carbon choices. Further research must address the knowledge gap between high-reward climate actions and people’s resistance to adopting them. 

These studies show that we must change our lifestyles as much as possible in the short term while working on long-term systemic changes. Better-off individuals must contribute considerably to reducing climate change by changing their behavior. But they also highlight the areas where motivation and income have little (or the opposite) effect, which are the areas policymakers and corporations should focus on. The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is dire and time-constrained, and the solution requires both behavioral and systemic change. Many of us are idealists, believing that we may save humanity if we “just” change the global economic system. However, until we reach this elusive goal, we must change at least three fronts: policy, business, and lifestyle choices. Governments must enact ambitious, strict green policies that force corporations to alter their operations. And since governmental action is slow, corporations also must take on real corporate responsibility to get a head start. And while those changes are happening, those who are privileged and able must change their lifestyles. To increase motivation for significant change, we must design and implement bottom-up (grassroots) and top-down (governmental regulation) methods to activate lifestyle changes. This research, which decouples the assumption that income (or climate concern) and climate emissions are always correlated, encourages all members of society to consider shifting their behavior—to fly less often, reduce car travel, and eat less meat.

Ultimately, this research calls for individual action and for governments and corporations to be accountable for making measuring changes.  Studies  have made it apparent that human actions have severely increased pollution. It is fair for the humans who have contributed most to pollution to shift their behavior to reduce it. As we await systemic change,  the science  is crystal clear: lifestyle change has a climate impact, so we have a moral responsibility to make decisions that reflect this.

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How do trees die from drought? Plant ecophysiologists are studying air bubbles in tree water columns to understand hydraulic failure: in other words, when tree water columns stop working. Their goal is to improve forecasts for tree responses in a changing climate future. Here is a brief summary of how hydraulic failure works and an introduction to three recent papers on the topic.

Countries and companies have set ambitious renewable energy targets, with demand for critical minerals in the energy sector projected to increase six-fold by 2040. To avoid over-dependency on a handful of supplier countries and to achieve ambitious climate targets, there is a need for individual countries to revisit their mining policies and for global organizations to create binding international agreements to manage critical minerals.

If environmental injustice is the issue, then environmental justice must be the goal—and it cannot be achieved without positioning Black, Indigenous, and People of Color as principal authorities on environmental impacts. Through legal frameworks like climate dominance and social science methods like feminist critical participatory action research (CPAR), communities most impacted by systemic environmental injustices are given credence and power as experts to subvert afterlives of colonialism and advocate for environmental justice.

Knowledge is power

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Yale Climate Connections

Climate change is affecting mental health literally everywhere

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Farmers who can’t sleep, worrying they’ll lose everything amid increasing drought. Youth struggling with depression over a future that feels hopeless. Indigenous people grief-stricken over devastated ecosystems. For all these people and more, climate change is taking a clear toll on mental health — in every part of the world.  

Experts shared these examples and others during a recent summit organized by the Connecting Climate Minds network that brought together hundreds of scientists, doctors, community leaders, and other experts from dozens of countries who have spent the past year studying how climate change is harming mental health in their regions. 

Although mental illnesses are often viewed as an individual problem, the experts made clear that climate change is contributing to mental health challenges everywhere. 

The Connecting Climate Minds youth ambassador from Borneo, Jhonatan Yuditya Pratama, said his Indigenous community views nature as a sacred extension of being. Seeing the devastation of climate change on ancestral lands has brought his community “a profound sense of grief and loss,” he said.

“For us, mental health isn’t just about individuals,” he said. “It’s about the collective well-being of our communities and the land itself. When nature suffers, so do we.”  

Extreme weather and air pollution are taking a toll 

In her keynote, Marina Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown and a Connecting Climate Minds advisory board member, explained the key ways that climate change threatens mental health. 

• Extreme heat is associated with increased self-harm and violence as well as more general feelings of negativity. It also leads to feelings of isolation when people feel trapped inside their relatively cooler homes.
• Wildfire or extreme weather stokes anxiety leading up to an event — and afterward — that can lead to PTSD or depression for survivors who have seen cherished places or lives lost.
• Farmers, fisherpeople, and others whose livelihoods are tied to the environment experience chronic stress, worry, and depression over things they can’t control, like extreme weather, habitat loss, and drought.
• Water scarcity increases stress for people in charge of seeking and transporting household water. Water scarcity also makes it hard for people to stay clean, potentially leading to isolation, loneliness, and depression. 
• Air pollution can keep kids out of school, leading to social isolation and, over time, a sense of hopelessness about the future. 

What’s more, people are experiencing the compounding effects of multiple disasters, said Emma Lawrance, who leads the Climate Cares Centre, a U.K.-based team that researches and supports mental health in the face of environmental crises: “With more frequent disasters, people can no longer recover psychologically from one before another occurs,” Lawrance said.  

And these escalating hazards are exacerbating social inequality, said Alaa Abelgawad, the Connecting Climate Minds youth ambassador representing northern Africa and western Asia. “[It’s] manifesting as anxiety, depression, and a profound sense of disempowerment among marginalized populations.”

Who is most vulnerable to climate change and mental health challenges? 

Many Indigenous communities have already been facing intergenerational trauma and a sense of deep disconnect from land and culture. Recurring climate devastation can intensify feelings of grief, stress, and disillusionment about the future, contributing to increased rates of addiction and suicide, participants said. 

Farmers, too, are among the most vulnerable. Changing seasonal norms, increasing drought, and a higher risk of severe weather are directly affecting their livelihoods. 

Sacha Wright, head of research at the youth-focused organization Force of Nature and part of Connecting Climate Minds’s “lived experience” working group, said that in Kenya, many small farmers are struggling with declining harvests and out of desperation have resorted to cutting down trees for charcoal. Though they felt they had no choice, some said cutting down the trees made the whole situation feel even worse. She spoke of high rates of depression, hopelessness, trauma, and a widespread feeling of “not knowing what to do.” 

For young people, climate change can also evoke a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness. In the Yucatan, one young person Wright interviewed said the only choices in life there are to migrate or enter the military. 

“When I see drought, I see my community leaving school and going to the military,” the person interviewed said. 

Mercy Njeru, a member of Connecting Climate Mind’s sub-Saharan Africa working group, said extreme heat is often leading to school closures across the region, setting youth up for failure and a sense of hopelessness. 

“When it’s so hot and you’re so anxious you can’t work, you can’t do anything because you’re feeling anxious or you’re feeling so sad from all the heat around you,” she said. 

In addition to environmental impacts, generational inequity and a sense of moral distress also contribute to anxiety for many youth. Britt Wray, director of Stanford Medicine’s Special Initiative on Climate Change and Mental Health, said she hears from many young people that power holders aren’t taking sufficient action, instead depending entirely on their generation to solve climate change. 

“This offloading of responsibility — without adequate partnership from the elder and more powerful contingents among us — can make burdensome climate anxiety and distress much worse,” she said.

Read: What baby boomers can do about climate change, according to Bill McKibben

What can be done to protect mental health as the climate changes? 

To help address the rising tide of mental health challenges, governments and public health leaders need to know exactly what kinds of impacts people are experiencing in their own communities.

First step: looking at experiences in every region. 

“We will only be successful if we can continue to connect and engage people from very different sectors, from neighborhoods all the way to multilateral organizations,” said Pamela Collins, chair of the department of mental health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 

Other examples of ways forward include everything from expanding health insurance to include climate-related mental health impacts to ensuring government policy supports people whose work has been affected by climate change to improve their job prospects. Several participants also spoke of the importance of returning to the wisdom of ancestral knowledge to address climate change in general, including mental health impacts. 

Other specific solutions offered by Connecting Climate Minds participants include:

• More public green space. Collins, the Hopkins professor, cited a study highlighting the need for more accessible green space in cities, a move that could have multiple positive outcomes, including on mental health. Forest bathing , AKA spending dedicated time in nature, reduces stress and anxiety, increases serotonin production, and improves mood regulation and overall mental health — all while being low-intensity and low-cost, said Niaya Harper Igarashi, part of Connecting Climate Mind’s eastern and southeastern Asia working group. 
• Focusing on reducing inequity. Making sure everyone has access to nutritious food, clean air and water, and sustainable energy sources is good for the climate and community. 
• Talking helps. In many communities, mental health is a taboo topic. By talking more openly about it on a personal level, in social or spiritual settings, at the dinner table, or in your doctor’s office, individuals can combat stigma and contribute to a growing understanding of these issues. 
• Meeting people where they are. From using vocabulary that makes sense for different communities to meeting people’s basic needs, solutions are most effective when they’re tailored for what real people are actually going through. For example, Wray, the Stanford expert, said meeting kids where they are includes screening for climate distress where many of them are every day: at school.

Lawrance, the Climate Cares lead who helped organize the summit, said it was heartening to see solutions being advanced around the world. 

“The dialogue showed this really strongly: that many solutions do already exist,” she said. “And it’s by learning from each other’s ways of knowing and doing that we can best find the ones that work for our context, and ensure people experiencing the worst climate impacts have a future where they cannot just survive, but thrive.”

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Bold Actions Needed: Uniting to Combat the Looming Climate Catastrophe

Posted: May 21, 2024 | Last updated: May 21, 2024

Climate change, arguably the defining issue of our time, is a pervasive and relentless force that threatens every aspect of human life and the world we inhabit. Often cloaked in scientific jargon, the concept may seem elusive to some, but the urgency of the issue is clear. As stewards of our planet and advocates for our collective future, it is our duty to untangle these complexities and champion a path forward.

A climate cataclysm looms large, with increasing greenhouse gas emissions causing changes at rates faster than previously anticipated. The repercussions are severe and widespread, including extreme and shifting weather patterns, rising sea levels, and escalating threats to biodiversity. This urgency is echoed in a stark reminder: "Climate change does not affect everyone equally."

Our present reality is alarming. The past decade was the warmest ever recorded, punctuated by devastating wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, and floods. Vulnerable regions are especially hard-hit, with mortality rates from climate disasters fifteen times higher than those in less vulnerable areas.

The environmental and societal impacts are profound, and without immediate and transformative action, climate change will unravel development progress, provoke mass migrations, and breed instability and wars.

In response to this crisis, a chorus of voices demands change. The Paris Agreement, a significant global step taken in December 2015, saw countries committing to action on climate change. Yet, as the world drifts off course from crucial emission reduction targets, the call for ambition grows louder.

Amid these discussions, the term "net zero" surfaces frequently. It represents an equilibrium where greenhouse gas emissions produced are equal to those removed from the atmosphere.

Achieving net zero is pivotal to curtail global warming and mitigate the worst impacts of climate change. The actions to reach this goal include reducing emissions and implementing carbon removal strategies like afforestation and reforestation.

But what is being done? The International Rescue Committee (IRC) maps hazards and supports sustainable livelihoods, prioritizing the needs of women and girls.

They urge world leaders to fulfill the commitment to provide $100 billion annually in climate financing. On a broader scale, initiatives like increasing renewable energy investments, protecting crucial ecosystems like forests and oceans, and enhancing climate resilience through infrastructural adaptations are being pursued.

Every individual has a role to play. In this vein, Greenpeace outlines actions that can be taken by governments, businesses, and citizens, such as keeping fossil fuels in the ground, investing in renewable energy, switching to sustainable transport, improving energy efficiency in homes, and encouraging plant-based diets to help mitigate climate change.

They stress the power of collective action and the influence that individuals can have by pressuring governments and corporations to adopt environmentally responsible policies and practices.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is also at the forefront, tracking and reporting greenhouse gas emissions, and investing in America's sustainable future. Their commitment extends to environmental justice, ensuring the protection of overburdened communities.

To make meaningful progress against climate change, we must embrace collective action. We are called upon to raise our voices, harness our capacity for innovation, and advocate for robust policies. The task is daunting, but it is one that can no longer be postponed. As we confront this unprecedented challenge, let us find hope in our shared resolve to forge a sustainable future, recognizing that "it's a question of making [solutions] happen."

In conclusion, climate change is a collective battle, and it requires the collaboration of governments, businesses, communities, and individuals.

By uniting our efforts and advocating for decisive climate action, we can address the climate crisis and pave the way for a more sustainable world. Every action counts, and together, we have the power to turn the tide against the looming climate catastrophe.

Relevant articles: - Understanding climate change: 5 concepts everyone should know , International Rescue Committee - What are the solutions to climate change? , greenpeace.org.uk - Climate Change , U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (.gov) - United Nations Sustainable Development , Welcome to the United Nations

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Reparation for Climate Change at the ECtHR

A missed opportunity or the first of many decisions to come.

The recent rulings on climate change by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) are—as others have pointed out in this blog  symposium —both  “historic and unprecedented”  for various reasons, not least regarding the question of reparation for climate change-related harm. While redress is a pivotal question to think through in relation to climate change, it has, somewhat surprisingly, received less attention from scholars and has not yet been directly addressed by international courts and tribunals. In this regard,  Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland  might be considered a missed opportunity on the part of the ECtHR.

KlimaSeniorinnen  was one of three cases concerning climate change before the ECtHR and the only one that reached a decision on its merits. Complaints in the two other cases– Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Other States  and  Carême v. France —were declared inadmissible.

The applicants in  KlimaSeniorinnen , four elderly women and an association established “to promote and implement effective climate protection on behalf of its members”, relied on article 2 (right to life), article 6 (right to access to court), article 8 (right to private and family life) and article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The applicants claimed that the increase in heat waves associated with climate change caused a health risk for elderly women, including the individual applicants, in view of their age. They further alleged that Swiss authorities had failed to take appropriate climate change mitigation measures and thus violated various articles of the ECHR. The court agreed, finding violations of Articles 6 and 8 of the ECHR. The Grand Chamber then went on to consider Articles 41 and 46, and thus touched upon, albeit not comprehensively, the issue of reparation under Article 41 of the ECHR specifically.

In  KlimaSeniorinnen , the ECtHR could have addressed the links between human rights violations caused by climate change and potential remedies. Such a discussion would have been especially valuable given that other international or regional courts and tribunals have yet to pronounce upon the topic. The issue may be addressed in the advisory opinions that will soon be rendered by the  International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea , the  Inter-American Court of Human Rights , and the  International Court of Justice .  Those opinions will naturally be circumscribed by the respective areas of jurisdiction of these courts and tribunals. Yet, it is the ruling of the ECtHR, delivered in the context of a dispute brought by individuals and a legal person, that had the greatest potential to develop the law in respect of reparations for climate change.

Reparations within the Framework of the ECtHR: Fit for (Climate Change) Purpose?

Discussing rights under the ECHR necessarily requires reflecting on the available remedies in case of violations of those rights. The analysis must start with a determination of whether it is possible to award  just satisfaction  under Article 41 of the ECHR. The jurisprudence of the ECtHR on reparations is abundant, and much has been written on the question of remedies before the Court (see e.g.  Ichim ,  Abdelgawad , or  Fikfak ).

The Court held that the individual applicants’ complaints were inadmissible and the KlimaSeniorinnen association did not claim damages under Article 41 of the Convention (para. 647). Considering the Court’s consistent jurisprudence, it unsurprisingly decided to make “no award under this head” ( ibid ). As such, the ECtHR did not have to address the topic of climate change-related reparations, nor explain, for example, what reparations are owed under the umbrella of lack or insufficient mitigation or adaptation measures, or the relationship between claims for compensation under the ECHR and other regimes (e.g. loss and damage). These topics are critical to understanding whether the ECHR regime is capable of adequately addressing reparations for loss and damage related to climate change.

Notably, the ECtHR did address a different set of legal consequences under Article 46 ECHR, which grants the Court the competence to order general (and individual) measures to assist States in fulfilling their obligations to “abide by the final judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties”. These measures are prospective and cannot be qualified as reparation as such. When such measures are taken by States, they tend to mitigate the risk of future human rights infringements, in this case those related to climate change. However, mindful of the separation of powers and principle of subsidiarity, the ECtHR took a cautious stance in its holding on Article 46.

In its  Observations on the facts, admissibility and the merits  (Observations) , KlimaSeniorinnen submitted “considerations [that] should guide the Court in devising the general measures (Art. 46 ECHR) to be taken by the Respondent” (Observations, para. 187), and submitted the following requests to order general measures under Article 46 ECHR:

“(5) to order the Respondent to adopt the necessary legislative and administrative framework to do its share to prevent a global temperature increase of more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, (6) to specify what this entails, namely: ensuring a [greenhouse gas (GHG)] emission level in 2030 that is net-negative as compared to the emissions in 1990; reducing domestic emissions by 61% below 1990 levels by 2030, and to net-zero by 2050, as the domestic component of a.; preventing and reducing any emissions occurring abroad that are attributable to the Respondent, in line with the 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels limit; permanently removing GHG emissions from the atmosphere and storing them in safe, ecologically and socially sound GHG sinks, if, despite a., b., c., any GHG emissions continue to occur within the control of the Respondent, or the concentration of GHG in the atmosphere is exceeding the level corresponding to the 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels limit; (7) to set a binding time-limit for the Respondent to implement such a framework which is adequate in view of (5 and 6) above.” (Observations, Section 3)

Notwithstanding the above, the Court found that KlimaSeniorinnen did not specify general measures  per se , but rather sought an order that Switzerland take all suitable measures to achieve certain climate change policy objectives. The Court held in this regard that:

“[t]he applicants submitted that in the event of a finding of a violation by the Court, Article 46 [ECHR] should also be applied. However, given that the choice of means to implement the Court’s judgment was primarily for the respondent State, the Court should not specify the measures to be taken. It should rather indicate that the State would need to take all suitable measures to allow it to achieve a level of annual emissions compatible with its target of attaining a minimum reduction of 40% in GHG emissions by 2030, and carbon neutrality by 2050” (para. 653).

As is common with cases involving environmental issues, the Court refused to order any “specific general measures”. It relied on its previous jurisprudence to point out the declaratory nature of its judgments and that “it is primarily for the State concerned to choose, subject to supervision by the Committee of Ministers, the means to be used in its domestic legal order in order to discharge its obligation under Article 46 [ECHR], provided that such means are compatible with the conclusions and spirit of the Court’s judgment” (para. 656).

Nonetheless, the Court highlighted that States have a “positive obligation” to prevent serious and irreversible adverse effects on human rights, notably the right to private and family life under Article 8 of the ECHR (paras. 440, 538 and 544-554). Accordingly, States do not have  carte blanche  when it comes to identifying the appropriate measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change. In this regard, the Court drew a fundamental distinction between “the scope of the margin [of appreciation] as regards, on the one hand, the State’s commitment to the necessity of combating climate change and its adverse effect, and the setting of the requisite aims and objectives in this respect, and, on the other hand, the choice of means designed to achieve those objectives” (para. 543). While the former aspect calls for a “reduced margin of appreciation for the States”, the latter justifies “a wide margin of appreciation” (para. 543). In particular, the Court emphatically stated that it would examine whether domestic authorities have taken into account the need to:

“(a) adopt general measures specifying a target timeline for achieving carbon neutrality and the overall remaining carbon budget for the same time frame, or another equivalent method of quantification of future GHG emissions, in line with the overarching goal for national and/or global climate-change mitigation commitments; (b) set out intermediate GHG emissions reduction targets and pathways (by sector or other relevant methodologies) that are deemed capable, in principle, of meeting the overall national GHG reduction goals within the relevant time frames undertaken in national policies; (c) provide evidence showing whether they have duly complied, or are in the process of complying, with the relevant GHG reduction targets (see sub-paragraphs (a)-(b) above); (d) keep the relevant GHG reduction targets updated with due diligence, and based on the best available evidence; and (e) act in good time and in an appropriate and consistent manner when devising and implementing the relevant legislation and measures.” (para. 550)

Furthermore, specifically with respect to Switzerland, the Court noted the “critical lacunae” in its domestic regulatory framework, “including a failure … to quantify, through a carbon budget or otherwise, national GHG emissions limitations” (para. 573); and noted that, as recognized by the relevant authorities, the State had previously failed to meet its past GHG emission reduction targets (see paras. 558-559).

Thus, while the Court did not order specific measures to be implemented pursuant to Article 46, its conclusions on the merits are quite prescriptive in relation to the actions that it considers Switzerland ought to take pursuant to Article 46(1) to comply with Article 8 of the ECHR. In particular, Switzerland could remedy its violation by (i) quantifying its national GHG emissions limitations through a carbon budget, and (ii) undertaking “measures for the substantial and progressive reduction of [its] GHG emission levels, with a view to reaching net neutrality within, in principle, the next three decades” (paras. 548 and 573).

In  KlimaSeniorinnen , the ECtHR effectively held that Member States to the Convention must adopt and apply regulations and measures capable of mitigating the existing and potentially irreversible, future effects of climate change. That is, ECHR Member States must adopt targets and timelines as a part of the domestic regulatory framework with a view to reaching net neutrality, in principle within the next three decades.

The Court’s decision was both prescriptive and deferential. On the one hand, it identified specific failures by Switzerland (e.g., the failure to adopt legislation and determine a carbon budget). On the other hand, the Court afforded Switzerland a margin of appreciation in the selection of individual measures taken to comply with Article 8 (subject to supervision by the Committee of Ministers). While the ECtHR continues “ to treat remedies as an afterthought ”, it provided the applicants (and others) guidance on how to continue exerting pressure on the Swiss government at the domestic level.

This decision will undoubtedly lead to more litigation before the Court. It will also influence cases pending before domestic courts in Europe that rely on the ECHR, and perhaps also elsewhere. Thus, while it was a missed opportunity on the part of the Court to address the topic of remedies related to climate change, it may also be the first of many decisions to come.

Armando Rocha

Armando Rocha is the Sabin Center's National Rapporteur for Portugal.

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Vladislava Stoyanova , Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Lund University, Sweden.

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Eneas Xavier

Eneas Xavier is a PhD Candidate in International Climate Change Law at Université de Montréal and an environmental lawyer (Brazil).

Camille Martini

Camille Martini is a PhD Candidate in International Climate Change Law at Université Laval and Aix-Marseille Université, Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar, and an Attorney (State of New York).

Miriam Cohen

Miriam Cohen is an Associate Professor and holds the Canada Research Chair on Human Rights and International Reparative Justice at University of Montreal’s Faculty of Law.

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Talent Show

5 key roles needed to comply with SEC, EU and California climate disclosure regulations

The shifting regulatory and legislative landscape will require companies to prioritize specialized positions.

By Ellen Weinreb

May 21, 2024

Source: Shutterstock/earth phakphum

New regulation in the U.S. and abroad has ushered in a wave of new roles around carbon reporting and disclosures. Originally, the driver was the much anticipated Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) climate disclosure rule. However, given the recent stay on the SEC rule, additional regulatory drivers remain such as the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and California SB 253 , which also faces legal challenges.

Sustainability executives are putting considerable resources into meeting the anticipated — or in the case of California, already enacted — regulatory requirements. Those resources include technology tools and headcount to support gathering  and inputting the data and then putting controls in place to substantiate claims.

As a recruiter, I’m seeing a number of new roles being created, too. Here are five roles companies should be focusing on in preparation for the new regulations. 

1. ESG controller

The ESG controller is responsible for setting up systems to integrate and analyze ESG data, including associated financial implications, conducting risk assessments, setting targets and monitoring progress. The emerging role is gaining attention and was featured in " The Rise of the ESG Controller " panel discussion at GreenBiz 24. 

"The ESG controller role reflects a more rigorous approach to monitoring and disclosing performance," said Velislava Ivanova , Americas chief sustainability officer and climate change and sustainability services leader at EY. "Bringing together competencies across sustainability management, accounting and assurance, this role will be crucial for embedding a new approach to climate accounting in compliance with the SEC rules."

2. In-house sustainability counsel (legal and compliance)

Many companies will need specialized legal expertise to navigate complex international disclosure requirements.

"Companies, especially multinationals, are balancing growing ESG enforcement and litigation risks, ever-expanding shareholder demands and an increasingly complex global landscape of disclosure requirements," said Alexandra Farmer , partner, ESG & Impact, Kirkland & Ellis. "This often requires legal and compliance teams to develop more in-depth substantive knowledge of ESG and sustainability. As a result, many companies are determining that they need a dedicated, often senior, legal or compliance professional to manage these issues."

3. Sustainability reporting director

Gone are the days when sustainability reporting could be an additional task for the communications team; increasingly, it requires a dedicated role with expertise in ESG reporting and a focus on coordination across the business.

Valerie Lee , CEO at BuzzWord, part of Anthesis, explained: "The new requirements are raising the bar for the quality and rigor of sustainability disclosure. Companies need leaders to guide their disclosure strategy and drive the reporting process with the expertise and influence to bring together the right people internally to make informed decisions." 

4. ESG data manager

Filling ESG data gaps might require a dedicated role such as an ESG data manager, who is responsible for building tools and integrating software, data management and analysis.

"We’re having a steady increase in discussions with finance, legal, technology/information teams about data management and quality. The phrase ‘data lake’ is commonly used and since we work in carbon accounting, new roles like the ESG data manager are becoming more common titles," said Mike Wallace, chief decarbonization officer at Persefoni AI. "These roles involve working closely with technology and data and will become even more important as regulation and AI evolve."

5. Climate scientist

Companies will need to disclose their climate strategy, and the preparation for this involves gap analysis, materiality assessment, strategy and goal setting — all of which require subject matter expertise .

Lucas Joppa , chief sustainability officer and senior managing director at Haveli Investments, explained the importance of having a climate expert on board: "Climate change is complex, and to set a strategy that tackles this issue meaningfully, companies need in-house expertise. A climate scientist helps direct the broader strategy and monitoring, ultimately boosting business success."

We’re likely to see variations depending on the needs of individual companies, as these roles work both independently or as part of an integrated solution. As companies prepare for regulatory and legislative action on climate disclosure, they will uncover gaps, not only in their data and disclosure but also in their in-house expertise and capabilities.

This is where a recruiter can offer support: Their understanding of both emerging roles and the company's needs can help ensure you have the right personnel in place.

View the discussion thread.

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Ellen Weinreb

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