climate change essay quotes

54 Inspirational and Shocking Quotes on Climate Change

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What are you doing to combat the adverse effects of climate change? Here are some famous quotes on climate change that help motivate people to act on this issue.

Leaders all over the globe, scientists, as well as a good number of the world’s population have realized the need to talk and act upon this issue.

Brilliant minds have come up with incredible quotes on climate change that may help people to understand the need for change.

List of best quotes about climate change and the environment

If we don’t take charge of our actions and continue destroying our environment, nature will surely hit back. That’s not a secret anymore.

We need to find sustainable ways to save nature. Here are some quotes about climate change written by various individuals from all corners of this beautiful planet.

Inspirational quotes about climate change

This section will include some of the most inspirational quotes on how to save the environment and combat climate change.

1. “Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bite you consume. Everyone everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea.” – Sylvia Earle

2. “If you really think that the environment is less important than the economy, try holding your breath while you count your money.” – Guy McPherson

3. “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” – Albert Einstein

4. “One of the biggest obstacles to making a start on climate change is that it has become a cliché before it has even been understood.” – Tim Flannery

5. “Twenty-five years ago, people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse.” – Desmond Tutu

6. “Climate change is the environmental challenge of this generation, and it is imperative that we act before it’s too late.” – John Delaney

Quotes on saving our planet

These quotes are directly related to how to save our planet.

7. “Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth… these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security, and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.” – Ban Ki-moon

8. “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.” – Native American Proverb

9. “We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change, and we are the last generation that can do something about it.” – Jay Inslee

10. “All things share the same breath – the beast, the tree, the man. The air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.” – Chief Seattle

12. “Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us.” – Bill Nye

11. “We must face up to an inescapable reality: the challenges of sustainability simply overwhelm the adequacy of our responses. With some honorable exceptions, our responses are too few, too little, and too late.” – Kofi A. Annan

13. “Climate change is sometimes misunderstood as being about changes in the weather. In reality, it is about changes in our very way of life.” – Paul Polman

14. “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

15. “Climate change does not respect border; it does not respect who you are – rich and poor, small and big. Therefore, this is what we call ‘global challenges,’ which require global solidarity.” – Ban Ki-moon

16. “Wind and other clean, renewable energy will help end our reliance on fossil fuels and combat the severe threat that climate change poses to humans and wildlife alike.” – Frances Beinecke

17. “If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.” – David Suzuki

18. “We can be thankful President Barack Obama is taking aim at one of the prime causes of climate change and extreme weather: air pollution. The EPA’s carbon pollution standards are the most significant step forward our country has ever taken to protect our health by addressing climate change.” – Donna Brazile

Real but shocking quotes on climate change

Although many people don’t take climate change seriously, there is a significant portion of the population who know and realize its devastating effects.

Here are some famous quotes on climate change said by great minds and which may help us realize what our actions affect our existence.

19. “The cost of our success is the exhaustion of natural resources, leading to energy crises, climate change, pollution, and the destruction of our habitat. If you exhaust natural resources, there will be nothing left for your children. If we continue in the same direction, humankind is headed for some frightful ordeals, if not extinction.” – Christian de Duve

20. “Climate change, in some regions, has aggravated conflict over scarce land, and could well trigger large-scale migration in the decades ahead. And rising sea levels put at risk the very survival of all small island states. These and other implications for peace and security have implications for the United Nations itself.” – Ban Ki-moon

21. “When all the world appears to be in a tumult, and nature itself is feeling the assault of climate change, the seasons retain their essential rhythm. Yes, fall gives us a premonition of winter, but then, winter will be forced to relent, once again, to the new beginnings of soft greens, longer light, and the sweet air of spring.” – Madeleine M. Kunin

22. “If you don’t act against climate change, then no matter how much money you leave for your children, it’ll not even cover their healthcare bills, due to living in an unhealthy planet.” – Abhijit Naskar

23. “I have long understood that climate change is not only an environmental issue – it is a humanitarian, economic, health, and justice issue as well.” – Frances Beinecke

24. “As human beings, we are vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable. In our everyday experience, if something has never happened before, we are generally safe in assuming it is not going to happen in the future, but the exceptions can kill you, and climate change is one of those exceptions.” – Al Gore

25. “Climate change is a global problem. The planet is warming because of the growing level of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. If this trend continues, truly catastrophic consequences are likely to ensue from rising sea levels to reduced water availability, to more heat waves and fires.” – Malcolm Turnbull

26. “There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point is what part humans are playing in it.” – David Attenborough

27. “The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.” – Barack Obama

28. “The world that you and I live in is increasingly challenged. Population growth, pollution, over-consumption, unsustainable patterns, social conflict, climate change, loss of nature… these are not good stories.” – Jack Dangermond

29. “Climate change is destroying our path to sustainability. Ours is a world of looming challenges and increasingly limited resources. Sustainable development offers the best chance to adjust our course”. – Ban Ki-moon

Horrifying but true climate change quotes

These are some climate change quotes that are truly eye-opening.

30. “Anybody who doesn’t see the impact of climate change is really, and I would say, myopic. They don’t see the reality. It’s so evident that we are destroying Mother Earth. This is not the problem of one country or a few countries: it is the problem of mankind. We need to work together to stop this. Otherwise, our future generations will simply disappear.” – Juan Manuel Santos

31. “The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis. It is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences.” – Al Gore

32. “We are all living together on a single planet, which is threatened by our own actions. And if you don’t have some kind of global cooperation, nationalism is just not on the right level to tackle the problems, whether it’s climate change or whether it’s technological disruption.” – Yuval Noah Harari

33. “The clear and present danger of climate change means we cannot burn our way to prosperity. We already rely too heavily on fossil fuels and we need to find a new, sustainable path to the future we want. We need a clean industrial revolution.” – Ban Ki-moon

34. “Climate change, if unchecked, is an urgent threat to health, food supplies, biodiversity , and livelihoods across the globe.” – John F. Kerry

35. “Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century.” – Sir Nicholas Stern

36. “By the time we see that climate change is really bad, your ability to fix it is extremely limited… The carbon gets up there, but the heating effect is delayed. And then the effect of that heat on the species and ecosystem is delayed. That means that even when you turn virtuous, things are actually going to get worse for quite a while.” – Bill Gates

37. “I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems. I believe mankind has looked at climate change in the same way, as if it were fiction.” – Leonardo DiCaprio

38. “We can’t take climate change and put it on the back burner. If we don’t address climate change, we won’t be around as humans.” – Conrad Anker

39. “We cannot compromise with the earth; we cannot compromise with the catastrophe of unchecked climate change, so we must compromise with one another.” – Gordon Brown

40. “To put it in more shocking terms, it doesn’t matter if the skeptics are right or not, because the assumptions on which the debate is based are already enough to doom us to a dystopian future.” – Charles Eisenstein

41. “The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.” – Noam Chomsky

Short thought-provoking quotes on climate change

Lastly, here are some intriguing short quotes on climate change.

42. “The Earth is a fine place and worth fighting for.” – Ernest Hemingway

43. “We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to.” – Terri Swearingen

44. “I’d be stunned, shocked, and amazed if there were a human being on the planet in 2030.” – Guy R. McPherson

45. “The Earth should not be a worse place after my life than it was when I was born here.” – Rob Stewart

46. “God gave us the earth, to till and to keep in a balanced and respectful way.” – Pope Francis

47. “Climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism.” – David King

48. “A planet being pushed to the edge will eventually turn on us.” – Marco Lambertini

49. “The planet will continue to cook.” – Paul Krugman

50. “Climatism is the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate.” – Steve Goreham

51. “The facts are there that we have created, man has, a self-inflicted wound that man has created through global warming.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

52. “We are running out of time, and we must have a planetary solution to a planetary crisis.” – Al Gore

53. “The future will be green or not at all.” – Jonathon Porritt

54. “There is no such thing as ‘away’. So, when we throw anything away, it must go somewhere.” – Annie Leonard

See Related : Best Books on Renewable Energy

Conclusion on quotes on climate change

To sum up the list of quotes on climate change we can only say that, there is much that has been said about climate change, but less has been done.

Therefore, I believe there is still much to do, and these quotes on climate change will help us all take nature with the seriousness it deserves. Move to wind and solar energy for free?

Like these quotes? Check out our favorite quotes about sustainability .

What are you doing to help save our planet? Please let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you.

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55+ Best Climate Change Quotes to Inspire Action for the Environment

These climate change quotes are perfect for reminding us to keep up the good fight, or for inspiring us to take action for the environment. get motivated with our quotes on sustainability, saving the planet, recycling, and more below.

Even the best climate change quotes about the environment aren’t solutions to this crisis.

However, they can inspire action and remind us what’s at stake.

In this post, we scoured the web for the best quotes about climate change, saving the environment, and sustainability.

And, hopefully, these will motivate you to keep up the good fight – or encourage you to take it up if you haven’t already!

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Here are the best climate change quotes and inspirational quotes about the environment:

We are all living together on a single planet, which is threatened by our own actions. And if you don’t have some kind of global cooperation, nationalism is just not on the right level to tackle the problems, whether it’s climate change or whether it’s technological disruption. Yuval Noah Harari

This is not a partisan debate; it is a human one. Clean air and water, and a livable climate are inalienable human rights. And solving this crisis is not a question of politics. It is our moral obligation. Leonardo DiCaprio

If you really think that the environment is less important than the economy, try holding your breath while you count your money. Guy McPherson

Climate change is sometimes misunderstood as being about changes in the weather. In reality, it is about changes in our very way of life. Paul Polman

You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. Jane Goodall

I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is. Greta Thunberg

Related Read : 7 Simple (But Effective) Ways to Beat Climate Change

By the time we see that climate change is really bad, your ability to fix it is extremely limited… The carbon gets up there, but the heating effect is delayed. And then the effect of that heat on the species and ecosystem is delayed. That means that even when you turn virtuous, things are actually going to get worse for quite a while. Bill Gates

We can’t take climate change and put it on the back burner. If we don’t address climate change, we won’t be around as humans. Conrad Anker

We have a single mission: to protect and hand on the planet to the next generation. François Hollande

We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change, and we are the last generation that can do something about it. Jay Inslee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything. Albert Einstein

The time is past when humankind thought it could selfishly draw on exhaustible resources. We know now the world is not a commodity, is not a source of revenue; it’s a common good, it’s our heritage. And the consequences of climate change are fully known now – we’re not talking about theories anymore, we’re talking about certainties. François Hollande

I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems. I believe mankind has looked at climate change in the same way, as if it were fiction. Leonardo DiCaprio

Related Read : How to Save the Planet by Sharing Ideas on Climate Action

Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bite you consume. Everyone, everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea. Sylvia Earle

Climate change is a global problem. The planet is warming because of the growing level of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. If this trend continues, truly catastrophic consequences are likely to ensue from rising sea levels to reduced water availability, to more heat waves and fires. Malcolm Turnbull

While the problem can sometimes seem overwhelming, we can turn things around — but we must move beyond climate talk to climate action. Ted Turner

We cannot burn our way to the future. We cannot pretend the danger does not exist — or dismiss it because it affects someone else. Ban Ki-moon

Men argue. Nature acts. Voltaire

The environment is where we all meet; where all of us have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share. Lady Bird Johnson

The future will be green or not at all. Jonathon Porritt

If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us. David Suzuki

Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse. Desmond Tutu

We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to. Terri Swearingen

Related Read : How Does Recycling Help the Environment? (& 10+ Materials to Recycle)

All things share the same breath — the beast, the tree, the man. The air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. Chief Seattle

Climate change, if unchecked, is an urgent threat to health, food supplies, biodiversity, and livelihoods across the globe. John F. Kerry

I’m often asked whether I believe in global warming. I now just reply with the question: Do you believe in gravity? Neil deGrasse Tyson

Climate change is destroying our path to sustainability. Ours is a world of looming challenges and increasingly limited resources. Sustainable development offers the best chance to adjust our course. Ban Ki-moon

Climate change isn’t something in the future. That narrative is fundamentally flawed because there are millions impacted and so many displaced already. That is the new inconvenient truth that no one wants to hear. Aneesa Khan

There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point is what part humans are playing in it. David Attenborough

Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us. Bill Nye

We are running out of time, and we must have a planetary solution to a planetary crisis. Al Gore

Related Read : 15 Earth Day Tips to Support the Environment & Stop Climate Change

Wind and other clean, renewable energy will help end our reliance on fossil fuels and combat the severe threat that climate change poses to humans and wildlife alike. Frances Beinecke

Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth… these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security, and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all. Ban Ki-moon

People of conscience need to break their ties with corporations financing the injustice of climate change. Desmond Tutu

The Earth is a fine place and worth fighting for. Ernest Hemingway

We must face up to an inescapable reality: the challenges of sustainability simply overwhelm the adequacy of our responses. With some honorable exceptions, our responses are too few, too little, and too late. Kofi A. Annan

The cost of our success is the exhaustion of natural resources, leading to energy crises, climate change, pollution , and the destruction of our habitat. If you exhaust natural resources, there will be nothing left for your children. If we continue in the same direction, humankind is headed for some frightful ordeals, if not extinction. Christian de Duve

There’s one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other, and that is the urgent threat of a changing climate. Barack Obama

Related Read : 10 Ways to Support the SDGs Without Spending Any Money

The climate is changing. The proper political debate would be how to deal with these risks. Steven Chu

This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you! Greta Thunberg

This powerful climate change quote comes from Greta Thunberg’s speech at the UN Climate Action Summit. Greta’s passion and honesty always shine through, making her one of the most influential environmental champions of our time.

Here’s the full video of that climate quote for full context:

Climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism. David King

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. Franklin D. Roosevelt

The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis. It is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences. Al Gore

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. Native American Proverb

Related Read : Here’s How to Support Black Lives Matter (5 Simple but Effective Actions)

One of the biggest obstacles to making a start on climate change is that it has become a cliché before it has even been understood. Tim Flannery

If you don’t act against climate change, then no matter how much money you leave for your children, it’ll not even cover their healthcare bills, due to living in an unhealthy planet. Abhijit Naskar

The clear and present danger of climate change means we cannot burn our way to prosperity. We already rely too heavily on fossil fuels and we need to find a new, sustainable path to the future we want. We need a clean industrial revolution. Ban Ki-moon

The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say – we will never forgive you. Greta Thunberg

The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact. Barack Obama

As human beings, we are vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable. In our everyday experience, if something has never happened before, we are generally safe in assuming it is not going to happen in the future, but the exceptions can kill you, and climate change is one of those exceptions. Al Gore

Climate change, in some regions, has aggravated conflict over scarce land, and could well trigger large-scale migration in the decades ahead. And rising sea levels put at risk the very survival of all small island states. These and other implications for peace and security have implications for the United Nations itself. Ban Ki-moon

Related Read : 25 Small Acts You Can Do to Have a Great Impact

I have long understood that climate change is not only an environmental issue – it is a humanitarian, economic, health, and justice issue as well. Frances Beinecke

Anybody who doesn’t see the impact of climate change is really, and I would say, myopic. They don’t see the reality. It’s so evident that we are destroying Mother Earth. This is not the problem of one country or a few countries: it is the problem of mankind. We need to work together to stop this. Otherwise, our future generations will simply disappear. Juan Manuel Santos

Climate change does not respect border; it does not respect who you are – rich and poor, small and big. Therefore, this is what we call ‘global challenges,’ which require global solidarity. Ban Ki-moon

Climate change isn’t an ‘issue’ to add to the list of things to worry about, next to health care and taxes. It is a civilizational wake-up call. A powerful message — spoken in the language of fires, floods, droughts, and extinctions — telling us that we need an entirely new economic model and a new way of sharing this planet. Telling us we need to evolve. Naomi Klein

We must now agree on a binding review mechanism under international law, so that this century can credibly be called a century of decarbonization. Angela Merkel

Related Read : 25+ Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quotes on Equality, Change & the Rule of Law

We cannot compromise with the earth; we cannot compromise with the catastrophe of unchecked climate change, so we must compromise with one another. Gordon Brown

Climate change is the environmental challenge of this generation, and it is imperative that we act before it’s too late. John Delaney

That’s all our top environment quotes about climate change, sustainability, global warming, and saving the Earth for now, and we hope they help motivate you into action! Check out our other articles on social impact to start or continue making meaningful change.

If you have any questions, feedback, or other great climate change quotes, let us know in the comment section just below, and thank you for reading!

One last thing:

If you’re looking for a college to attend or support taking climate action, don’t overlook the University Of Dundee !

The University of Dundee is one of the UK’s top 20 universities (The Guardian University Guide 2021) and is classed as top in the UK for climate action (Times Higher Education University Impact Rankings 2021). Their core purpose revolves around transforming lives and working locally and globally through the creation, sharing, and application of knowledge.

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List: 15 essential reads for the climate crisis

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We — Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Wilkinson — are climate experts who focus on solutions, leadership and building community.

We are a natural and a social scientist, a Northerner and a Southerner. We’re also both lifelong interdisciplinarians in love with words and the cofounders of The All We Can Save Project , in support of women climate leaders.

Our collaboration has led us to read widely and deeply about the climate crisis that’s facing humanity. Here are 15 of our favorite writings on climate — this eclectic list contains books, essays, a newsletter, a scientific paper, even legislation and they’re all ones we wholeheartedly recommend.

All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis coedited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Wilkinson

We had the honor of editing this collection of 41 essays, 17 poems, quotes and original illustrations — so naturally we love it! But you don’t have to take our word for it. As Rolling Stone said : “Taken together, the breadth of their voices forms a mosaic that honors the complexity of the climate crisis like few, if any, books on the topic have done yet. … The book is a feast of ideas and perspectives, setting a big table for the climate movement, declaring all are welcome.” All We Can Save nourished, educated and transformed us as we shaped its pages, and we can’t wait for it to do the same for you.

Ghost Fishing: An Eco-justice Poetry Anthology edited by Melissa Tuckey

We count ourselves among those who can’t make sense of the climate crisis without the aid of poets, who help us to see more clearly, feel our feelings, catch our breath, and know we’re not alone. This anthology is a magnificent quilt of poems that are made for this moment and all its intersections.

“We Don’t Have to Halt Climate Action to Fight Racism” by Mary Annaïse Heglar

“Climate People,” as she likes to call us, should be grateful that Mary Annaïse Heglar decided a few years back to pick up her pen once more as a writer. All of her essays are necessary reading, but this one is especially so, crafted from Mary’s perspective as a “Black Climate Person.” It’s a powerful articulation of the inextricability of a society that values Black lives and a livable planet for all.

Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change by Sherri Mitchell — Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset

Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset means “she who brings the light,” and Sherri Mitchell does exactly that in this incredible tapestry of a book, which begins with Penawahpskek Nation creation stories and concludes with guidance on what it means to live in a time of prophecy. It is rare that a book so generously shares wisdom, much less wisdom about how we got to where we are, what needs mending, and what a path forward that’s grounded in ancestral ways of knowing and being might look like.

Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown

How lucky are we to be contemporaries of adrienne maree brown? Very. This is a book that we come back to time and time again to ground and enliven our work. We love this line from her about oak trees: “Under the earth, always, they reach for each other, they grow such that their roots are intertwined and create a system of strength that is as resilient on a sunny day as it is in a hurricane.” That’s the kind of community we’re trying to nurture.

“Circumstances Affecting the Heat of the Sun’s Rays” by Eunice Newton Foote

Eunice Newton Foote rarely gets the credit she’s due — and she deserves a lot of credit. In fact, we like to think of her as the first climate feminist. In 1856, she connected the dots between carbon dioxide and planetary warming, but science and history forgot (dismissed?) her until recently. This is her original paper, which was published in The American Journal of Science and Arts . Foote was also a signatory to the women’s rights manifesto created at Seneca Falls in 1848, alongside visionaries like Frederick Douglass.

The Drawdown Review by Project Drawdown

Full disclosure: Katharine is The Drawdown Review’ s editor-in-chief and principal writer. But Ayana fully endorses this recommendation — it’s a valuable resource as we charge ahead toward climate solutions. We all need to know what tools are in the toolbox, and The Drawdown Review is the latest compendium of climate solutions that already exist. This publication is beautifully designed, grounded in research, and you can access it for free.

The Green New Deal Resolution by the 116th US Congress

It seems that almost everyone has an opinion about the Green New Deal, but few people have read the actual piece of legislation: House Resolution 109: Recognizing the Duty of the Federal Government to Create a Green New Deal, which was introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey. The big secret is that it’s only 14 pages! It makes a clear, compelling and concise case for what comprehensive climate policy should look like in the US. We’d love for everyone to read it so we can all have a more grounded discussion about what we might agree and disagree with and chart a course forward.

“Think This Pandemic Is Bad? We Have Another Crisis Coming” by Rhiana Gunn-Wright

Speaking of policy … this op-ed , penned by Rhiana Gunn-Wright, who is one of the policy leads for the Green New Deal, makes the connections between climate, justice, COVID-19 and our recession as clear as day. She lays out an ironclad case for the the need to address these issues together, and why. As she writes, “We need to design the stimulus not only to help the US economy recover but to also become more resilient to the climate crisis, the next multitrillion-dollar crisis headed our way.”

“How Can We Plan for a Future in California?” by Leah Stokes

In the midst of raging fires and continuing pandemic, UC Santa Barbara Professor Leah Stokes, who’s based in Santa Barbara, lays it plain in her piece : “I don’t want to live in a world where we have to decide which mask to wear for which disaster, but this is the world we are making. And we’ve only started to alter the climate. Imagine what it will be like when we’ve doubled or tripled the warming, as we are on track to do.” As she and others have been pointing out, journalists have been failing to make the critical connection: “What’s happening in California has a name: climate change.”

HEATED by Emily Atkin

This is the reading rec that keeps on giving, literally — it’s a daily newsletter that brings climate accountability journalism right to your inbox. It’s chock full of smarts, spunk, truth-telling and super timely writing that isn’t hemmed in by media overlords. If you’re pissed off about the climate crisis, Emily Atkin made HEATED just for you.

The July 20 2020 Issue of TIME Magazine

This entire issue, titled “One Last Chance”, is dedicated to coverage of climate, and it includes wise words from so many luminaries from politician Stacey Abrams to soil scientist Asmeret Asefaw Berhe , with a lead piece by Time ’s climate journalist Justin Worland. Ayana also has a piece in this issue called “ We Can’t Solve the Climate Crisis Unless Black Lives Matter .” To see all of this collected in one place — insights on topics from oceans to agriculture to politics to activism — was heartening. We hope there’s much more of this to come, from many magazines.

“Wakanda Doesn’t Have Suburbs” by Kendra Pierre Louis

A pop-culture connoisseur and expert storyteller, Kendra Pierre Louis takes up the topic of climate stories in her essay — the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good, she explains, are all too rare, and that’s a big problem because stories are powerful. Black Panther may be our best story of living thoughtfully and well on this planet, not least thanks to an absence of carbon-spewing suburbs. It’s going to take much better narratives, and many more of them, if humans are to, as she puts it, “repair our relationship with the Earth and re-envision our societies in ways that are not just in keeping with our ecosystems but also make our lives better.” !

“We Need Courage, Not Hope, to Face Climate Change” by Kate Marvel PhD

This piece by NASA climate scientist Kate Marvel is, as the kids say, a whole mood. Hope is not enough, hope is often passive, and that won’t get us where we need to go. Pretty much everyone who works on climate is constantly being asked what gives us hope — how presumptuous to assume we have it! But what we do have is courage. In spades. As Marvel writes in this poetic piece: “We need courage, not hope. Grief, after all, is the cost of being alive. We are all fated to live lives shot through with sadness, and are not worth less for it. Courage is the resolve to do well without the assurance of a happy ending.”

Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis

Admittedly, this last recommendation isn’t something to read, but to watch and listen to. This playlist of TED Talks by women climate leaders (who were all contributors to our anthology All We Can Save — read about it above) will inspire you, deepen your understanding, connect the dots and help you find where you might fit into the heaps of climate work that needs doing. It includes poignant talks by Colette Pichon Battle and Christine Nieves Rodriguez , which are respectively about communities in Louisiana and Puerto Rico recovering from hurricanes and rebuilding resilience and which broke our hearts open. We were so moved we invited them to adapt their talks into essays for All We Can Save . Christine’s piece — “Community is Our Best Chance” — is the final essay in the book and the note we want to end on here. It’s not about what each of us can do as individuals to address the climate crisis; it’s about what we can do together . Building community around solutions is the most important thing.

Watch Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s TED Talk here: 

Watch Katharine Wilkinson’s TED Talk here: 

About the authors

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson PhD is a marine biologist, policy expert and Brooklyn native. She is founder of the nonprofit think tank Urban Ocean Lab, founder and CEO of the consultancy Ocean Collectiv and cocreator and cohost of the Spotify/Gimlet podcast How to Save a Planet. She coedited the anthology All We Can Save and cofounded The All We Can Save Project in support of women climate leaders. Her mission is to build community around climate solutions. Find her @ayanaeliza.

Katharine Wilkinson PhD is an author, strategist, teacher and one of 15 “women who will save the world,” according to Time magazine. Her writings on climate include The Drawdown Review, the New York Times bestseller Drawdown and Between God & Green. She is coeditor of All We Can Save and co founder of The All We Can Save Project, in support of women climate leaders. Wilkinson is a former Rhodes Scholar. Find her @DrKWilkinson.

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Simon Evans

Did Santa bring any of these this Christmas?

We asked 25 thinkers, writers and journalists a simple question: What books or readings inspired you to get involved in climate change-related work?

We were expecting to get back a list of books – and we did. But we also got some interesting insights into why people work on this issue, why they started, and why they carry on.

Professor of meteorology at Penn State University. Author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars .

“Two books that inspired me as a young scientist were The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen J. Gould and The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. Gould and Sagan were both heroes of mine, premier scientists in their domains (evolutionary biology and planetary science respectively), and also gifted communicators.

“Both books explore the pernicious societal impact of antiscience and pseudoscience. In Gould’s case, the bad science behind early 20th century dogma contending a racial basis to human intelligence. In Sagan’s case, it was the tendency for human beings to hold irrational views about matters such as faith healing, extrasensory perception, and UFOs.

“Both exemplify how scientists can be effective advocates for an informed public discourse over societally-relevant matters of science.”

For an 8-year old Maureen Raymo, Jacques Cousteau’s love of the ocean was infectious

Maureen Raymo

Professor of palaeoceanography at Columbia University  and author of Written in Stone .

“I’ve been around a long time and the books that inspired me as a grad student were written in the 80s and are now fairly obsolete. However, my greatest inspiration was a person, Jacques Cousteau (and his books and TV shows). From the age of eight I wanted to explore the ocean.”

Daniel Ortega

Ecuador’s lead climate negotiator.

“For over 50 years, Rachel Carson’s masterpiece ‘ Silent Spring ‘ has continued to provoke controversy and public awareness. This book made the case that our actions have an impact both on nature and humans, and that the remedy to environmental problems can be worse than the original illness.

“Reading Carson’s book during the earlier years of my training to become an agronomist, while working in the fields and inside forests in rural Latin America, inspired me to reflect on climate change, its causes and impacts on poor countries and their efforts to eradicate poverty.

“Since then I have worked on climate at every level of society, from social movements up to international negotiations, hopefully learning from the achievements of Ms Carson’s book.”

Natalie Bennett

Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales .

“I’d recommend, for readers well into their science studies, or readers prepared to stick with some fairly technical stuff, Oxygen: A Four Billion Year History by Donald E Canfield.

“It explains both the incredible recent progress of the science (lots of what I was taught in school is now clearly wrong), and also still how little we know about the massive past changes in our world that could help inform us about the risks of the Anthropocene. I’ve written more here .”

David MacKay

Professor of engineering at the University of Cambridge and former chief scientific adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

“I recommend Challenged By Carbon by Bryan Lovell. This is an unusual book, intertwining two stories, one of them 55 million years old, and one less than 55 years old. For the older, slower story, Dr Lovell delves into the details of the geological history of Iceland, the North Atlantic, and the North Sea.

“The younger, rapidly-moving story is the `insider’s view’ of how the oil industry, in the last 15 years, changed its mind about human-caused climate change. Starting from positions of climate inactivism (by which I mean ‘yeah, it may be true, but there’s lots of uncertainty and there’s no point doing anything, and we oppose greenhouse-gas-reduction treaties’) or outright denial, the big oil companies, driven by the science, changed their tunes.”

Political director of Greenpeace UK

“I am not a Utopian. I think the best that I can do is battle dystopia –  and leave the door open for human potential.  And so the book I would recommend is a story about ‘little’ people toiling against the tyranny of big lies – against those sweeping ideological certainties that disconnect us from reality and enable war, cruelty and poverty to ride triumphant.

” Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada tells the story of an elderly German couple whose son is killed in the Second World War.  Their hearts are broken, and they set out on a brave, funny and finally doomed mission to tell the truth to their fellow citizens.

“The example of remaining consistently faithful to a politics that protects the intimate and domestic is one I find inspiring and in this case awe-inspiring.  I would like it to inform all my work, not just my work on climate change.”

Richard Betts

Leader of the climate impacts team at the Met Office.

“I was particularly inspired by Gaia: A new look at life on Earth by James Lovelock, which I read in 1991 when doing my MSc in meteorology. I was fascinated by the idea that life plays a central role in the climate system, and this has led to the well-established field of Earth System Science which is where I see my own research contributing.

“I acknowledged Lovelock in my first paper in Nature on climate-vegetation feedbacks, which led to a set of new models in the Met Office Hadley Centre that are now central to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports.”

Psychotherapist researching climate change.

“My choice isn’t an old favourite but a new one, Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate [published tomorrow, 16 September]. Klein covers all bases with a clear systematic understanding of the issues.

“She’s curious about the everyday denial which allows us to simultaneously know but ignore the significance of climate change. She’s courageous in investigating our abuse of nature. She’s savvy about politics and the deadly influence of free-market fundamentalism. She takes on the arguments about growth.

“She’s clear-headed about the need for state intervention. She’s encouraging about the possibilities of building solidarity. She’s empathic with and angry about the suffering of ordinary people. And she weaves it all together in clear, compelling prose. Everything you need in one book.”

Oliver Morton

Briefings editor of the Economist and author of Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet .

“Two big influences on me: The Ages of Gaia , by Jim Lovelock – probably his best book. I already had a sense of earth system science and of the deep past, so the book simply fascinated me, and deepened both my knowledge of and my feelings about the planet. If I hadn’t been prepared for it I think it would have blown my mind completely.

“And the Martian Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. These excellent books are not just among the best science fiction novels of recent decades. Their central theme of terraforming makes them a long and subtle look at political and personal beliefs in the context of changing how a planet works.

“The estrangement that comes from making the debate about Mars and not (directly) the Earth makes the effect all the stronger, opening up the question of what it really means to be an environmentalist.”

Jules Verne – an early thinker about the risks of geoengineering, it turns out

Brigitte Nerlich

Professor of science, language & society at Nottingham University .

“If I had to choose a text, but only if I had to, because it would be a lie to say that a particular text ‘inspired’ me to think about climate change, I would point Jules Verne’s The Purchase of the North Pole .

[Originally titled Sans Dessus Dessous, the book takes readers on a flight of imagination in which a group of entrepreneurs plan to use a giant cannon to alter the earth’s tilt, so ending seasons, melting the North Pole and making accessible vast coal reserves under the Arctic.]

“I read this book many years ago when studying French literature and had almost forgotten about it. However, it all came back to me when beginning to explore the social and cultural roots and impacts of debates about climate change in general and geoengineering in particular.

“Debates about the climate and human interference in the climate system have a long history, not only in science, but also in popular culture. Understanding these debates needs knowledge of both.”

Green thinker and co-founder of environment thinktank E3G .

“There are two quotations from the Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke that have been important for me in my thirty year involvement in climate change. They come from the Duino Elegies, Rilke’s masterpiece which he began composing in June of 1914.

“The first is ‘strange to see all that once was relation so loosely fluttering, hither and thither, in space’. This line sums up for me what we are fighting for. Climate change will destroy ‘all that was once relation’ – everything that is best about this planet both from what nature has done and what mankind has done.

“The second quotation is ‘Is it not time that in loving we learnt to endure as, quivering, the arrow endures the string, to become in the gathering outleap something more than itself’. There are many dark days in the fight to keep the climate safe for civilisation and I find a comfort in these words when my spirits are low.”

Prakash Mathema

Nepalese climate expert and chair of the Least Developed Countries group at the UN climate negotiations.

“Climate change is undermining the development efforts of Nepal and other Least Developed Countries, making it even more difficult for us to reduce poverty and enhance economic growth. My firm belief is that the UN climate convention is the only legitimate global forum where international cooperation can best deliver such an agreement spurred me to join the climate change negotiations process.

“I have been inspired by Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman, which asserts that the best way forward is to replace wasteful inefficient energy practices with a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency and conservation.

” Toward a Binding Climate Change Adaptation Regime by Mizan Khan is another inspiration. It sets out a framework for establishing a legally-binding adaptation regime under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, with the view to reducing the gap between the focus on mitigation and adaptation.”

A New York Times article of 8 January 1979 inspired Ken Caldeira

Ken Caldeira

Climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University.

“I was inspired to get into climate science by reading the daily newspaper. In 1979 I read a story in the New York Times about the potential for greenhouse warming to melt ice sheets and result in dramatic sea level rise. I then got my hands on some early reports on climate change.

“Back then, there was no Internet and you had to either go to libraries or even write to people by postal mail. It is far easier to get information now, but also far easier to find bad information. Eventually, I went to graduate school and became a scientist which was one of the best decisions I have ever made.”

Professor of climate and culture at Kings College London and author of Why We Disagree About Climate Change .

“Hubert Lamb’s Climate, History and the Modern World surveys a huge canvas and he paints in eloquent terms the relationships between climate and society over the last 2,000 years. The book first established for me that, whatever the balance of factors that contribute to a changing climate, climate should not be regarded as a fixed boundary condition for society.

“Although Lamb was never entirely convinced by the arguments for the enhanced greenhouse effect being the dominant cause of climate change, he had grasped before all of us that climate and society are tightly coupled systems and co-evolve on all time and space scales.”

Climate scientist at the University of Reading . Runs the Climate Lab Book website.

“The Callendar Effect , by James Fleming describes the work of Guy Stewart Callendar in establishing the role of carbon dioxide in warming the planet. Callendar was the first person to demonstrate that the Earth was warming in 1938, and that increases in atmospheric CO2 were at least partly responsible.

“These feats are even more impressive given that he was an amateur meteorologist, and did all the tedious calculations by hand. The book helps highlight that the basic physics behind climate science was established many decades ago.”

Geoffrey Lean

Environment correspondent at the Telegraph .

“I started to write about climate change in the 1970s, inspired by Barbara Ward’s and Rene Dubos’ classic Only One Earth . But the book that most impressed the importance of the issue upon me was Nigel Calder’s The Weather Machine and the Threat of Ice published in 1974.

“Calder’s book was concerned with global cooling not warming and perhaps marked the climax of the short-lived concern that the major danger was of a new ice age – a concern now routinely mocked by climate contrarians, somewhat paradoxically because he was a prominent sceptic himself. But it introduced to me – and the general public – the  important concept that climates can change both rapidly and radically.”

Researcher and writer on the politics of science, technology and the environment. Contributor to the Road to Paris blog .

” The Discovery of Global Warming by Spencer Weart doesn’t offer a eureka moment. As the author stresses, our knowledge of climate change has been an elongated process of multiple discoveries, scientific and political.

“Such granular development might seem a bit depressing and/or boring. But this book is both engrossing and liberating. It’s a useful explainer of how we got to here with respect to climate change, but it’s also a book of hope. Above all, it’s a story of social awareness and change, with a real sense that more change is possible.”

Head of policy at Ovo Energy , and former head of energy and environment at Policy Exchange .

“I tend to think the most useful books about climate change are often those which have nothing to do with it, but make general arguments that are applicable to the debate (John Kay’s Truth About Markets is the best example).

“But Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air by David Mackay is an excellent exception. It drills down into the detail of what a low-carbon UK actually means, challenges woolly thinking on the argument that decarbonisation is easy and makes the reader confront difficult choices. It is a wonk reference work and we use it most weeks in our internal discussions.”

James Painter

Climate journalism researcher and head of journalism fellowship programme at Oxford University’s Reuters Institute .

“It is virtually impossible to write a successful novel about climate change. The science gets in the way, the characters too easily become advocates for action or villains for opposing it, or plots can be too driven by visions of apocalypse.

” Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver is the exception. Her knowledge of etymology is worn lightly, her characters are drawn with sympathy and insight, and her narrative is compelling. She even knows about science communication. The scientist at one point complains that ‘as long as we won’t commit to knowing everything, the presumption is we know nothing’.”

Katharine Hayhoe

Director of the Climate Science Centre at Texas Tech University and science advisor to climate change documentary series ‘ Years of Living Dangerously ‘.

” Red Sky Warning by Gus Speth places climate change within the larger context of human society and development on this planet and what it will take to ensure a truly sustainable life for ourselves and our kids.”

Mark Brandon

Climate scientist and ice expert at the Open University .

“I love Fixing Climate by Robert Kunzig and Wallace Broecker because it plays to my natural optimistic personality. It’s a book of two halves.

“In the first we get a fantastic overview of how climate history was discovered by one of the pioneers. It spells out what the climate problem is and what may very likely happen in the near future.

“In the second half Kunzig and Broecker explain what we could actually do to solve the situation we have mostly unknowingly created. It’s very well written and is compelling stuff. I am surprised it is not more popular.”

Max Boykoff’s copy of The Carbon War is well-thumbed

Max Boykoff

Climate media researcher and associate professor, Colorado University.

“I can point to Jeremy Leggett’s The Carbon War . Published in 2001, it is an early take on the politics of climate change. His sharp accounts of the foundational science-policy interactions at the international scale still make this a useful set of insights that shed light on continuing climate change politics in 2014.

“The crescendo of the book in Kyoto in 1997 is worth revisiting as we move through critical UN climate meetings in Lima, Bonn and Paris over the next 15 months or so. It inspired me to do work I continue doing now on the cultural politics of climate change – my heavily dog-eared and marked up copy remains close by in my office.”

Jonathon Porritt

Environmentalist and author of Capitalism As If the World Matters .

“I would like to put forward  Reinventing Fire by Amory Lovins and others at the Rocky Mountain Institute. Lovins has been summoning up visions and blueprints for an ultra-low-carbon world for around forty years, so he really knows what he’s talking about by now. Reinventing Fire fizzes with intellectual and practical energy of every kind. It’s like sticking your finger into a scintillating and wholly uplifting energy source – without the pain!”

Director of research at the Climatic Research Unit , University of East Anglia.

“Nothing really inspired me to get where I am back in the 1970s (I finished my PhD in 1976/7). At that time it was just a job. It has worked out well, but this was basically chance. When I started it was climate research. There wasn’t climate change then!

“We have prospective MSc students wanting to read something before they come. I always recommend the Rough Guide to Climate Change – which seems now in its third edition. Not really inspirational, but gets across simply many of the points we want to instill into a new set of students.”

Bryony Worthington

Labour life peer and founder of carbon trading campaign group Sandbag .

“The book that inspired me when I was starting to get interested in climate change was   Natural Capitalism , in particular Chapters 12 and 13. It’s a fascinating and stimulating read that influenced me when I was thinking of starting Sandbag. Even today we often quote the great line: ‘In God we trust: all others bring data.’

“It was in this book I first came across the idea of Negawatts and the idea of creating markets in increased resource efficiency. There is still a long way to go to bring many of these ideas to life but the overwhelming logic of them is compellingly presented in this book.”

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News & features, winter center, news / accuweather ready, the best climate change quotes that will inspire you.

An emotional Greta Thunberg scolds world leaders for failing on climate change. The 16-year-old said they had done too little to tackle the problem.

As the world population grows, the percentage of good people continues to grow also. Universal education will be a key factor in surviving as a whole. Being aware of the climate and weather shows intelligence. Many climate change activists in the world are fighting for a change for the better. For your inspiration, here are 10 climate change quotes from people around the world who want to reduce the amounts of greenhouse gases we are emitting into the atmosphere.

Photo by Markus Spiske

1. Quote by Imran Khan

"I feel that there is a lack of seriousness. Perhaps world leaders do not realize the urgency of the situation. We have a lot of ideas, but as someone said, 'ideas without funding is mere hallucination,'"

2. Quote by Albert Einstein

"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything."

3. Quote by Franklin D. Roosevelt

"A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people."

4. Quote by Ernest Hemingway

"The Earth is a fine place and worth fighting for."

5. Quote by President Barack Obama

"Climate change is no longer some far-off problem; it is happening here; it is happening now."

6. Native American Proverb

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."

7. Quote by Greta Thunberg

"Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling."

8. Quote by Al Gore

"The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis. It is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences."

9. Quote by Leonardo DiCaprio

"Clean air and water, and a livable climate are inalienable human rights. And solving this crisis is not a question of politics. It is our moral obligation -if, admittedly, a daunting one."

10. Quote from the Bible

"The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt.

Inspired for change

Hopefully, after reading these 10 inspirational quotes, you feel it in yourself to make a change in the world. Even if you don't believe in climate change, you have to admit that the world is consuming more and more daily, and pollution is an undeniable problem. It is our duty as citizens of this planet to make a better one for our children. People quotes are an excellent way of inspiring other people to take action concerning something important. The diversity of influential people who put climate change quotes out into the public should be enough for one to realize that it is an important matter; we need to take care of our earth and be aware of its weather patterns. Hopefully, you enjoyed these change quotes and remember that it is always a good time to read quotes about change.

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COP27: The top quotes from climate and world leaders at the UN summit

'We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator,' says UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Image:  REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

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This article was published on 11 November and updated on 21 November.

• COP27, the UN climate summit, has concluded with a 'loss and damage' deal after two weeks of talks in Egypt from 6 to 20 November.
• Here are some of the top quotes from the world leaders and climate delegates that took part.

World leaders, policymakers and delegates from nearly 200 countries met in Egypt at the COP27 UN climate summit, in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

Discussions ended on Sunday, 20 November, with a hard-fought deal to create a 'loss and damage' fund to help poor countries being battered by climate disasters .

Here are some of the key quotes from leaders over the two weeks...

"There can be no effective climate policy without the peace ... There are still many for whom climate change is just rhetoric or marketing ... but not real action ... They are the ones who start wars of aggression when the planet cannot afford a single gunshot because it needs global joint action."

—Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine

"The climate crisis is about human security, economic security, environmental security, national security, and the very life of the planet ... It's more urgent than ever that we double down on our climate commitments. Russia's war only enhances the urgency of the need to transition the world off its dependence on fossil fuels."

"Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing. Global temperatures keep rising. And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible. We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator."

—António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations

"I'm here today to say that Brazil is ready to come back ... There is no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon. We will spare no efforts to have zero deforestation and the degradation of our biomes by 2030."

"The global fossil fuel crisis must be a game-changer. So let us not take the 'highway to hell' but let's earn the clean ticket to heaven."

—Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission

"In the face of impending catastrophe, whose warning signs are already unbearably disastrous, weak action is unwise. No action is dangerous."

—William Ruto, President of Kenya

"The dystopia has already come to our doorstep ... The political advances we make here will have very little meaning on the ground unless there is a transfer of resources that shifts the needle on how people face the future."

—Sherry Rehman, Minister of Climate Change, Pakistan

The Global Risks Report 2023 ranked failure to mitigate climate change as one of the most severe threats in the next two years, while climate- and nature- related risks lead the rankings by severity over the long term.

The World Economic Forum’s Centre for Nature and Climate is a multistakeholder platform that seeks to safeguard our global commons and drive systems transformation. It is accelerating action on climate change towards a net-zero, nature-positive future.

Learn more about our impact:

• Scaling up green technologies: Through a partnership with the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, and over 65 global businesses, the First Movers Coalition has committed $12 billion in purchase commitments for green technologies to decarbonize the cement and concrete industry.
• 1 trillion trees: Over 90 global companies have committed to conserve, restore and grow more than 8 billion trees in 65 countries through the 1t.org initiative – which aims to achieve 1 trillion trees by 2030.
• Sustainable food production: Our Food Action Alliance is engaging 40 partners who are working on 29 flagship initiatives to provide healthy, nutritious, and safe foods in ways that safeguard our planet. In Vietnam, it supported the upskilling of 2.2 million farmers and aims to provide 20 million farmers with the skills to learn and adapt to new agricultural standards.
• Eliminating plastic pollution: Our Global Plastic Action Partnership is bringing together governments, businesses and civil society to shape a more sustainable world through the eradication of plastic pollution. In Ghana, more than 2,000 waste pickers are making an impact cleaning up beaches, drains and other sites.
• Protecting the ocean: Our 2030 Water Resources Group has facilitated almost $1 billion to finance water-related programmes , growing into a network of more than 1,000 partners and operating in 14 countries/states.
• Circular economy: Our SCALE 360 initiative is reducing the environmental impacts of value chains within the fashion, food, plastics and electronics industries, positively impacting over 100,000 people in 60 circular economy interventions globally.

Want to know more about our centre’s impact or get involved? Contact us .

"When nations such as Pakistan undergo the kind of profound shock they've just gone through, when small island nations in the Caribbean every year worry about in 12 hours losing a third or more of their GDP ... you have created an economically impossible scenario."

—Achim Steiner, Administrator of the UN Development Programme

"Everybody was flexible for the cause of loss and damage and the disasters and people dying and the economy being lost. I thank all the parties ... who were not flexible initially but who were flexible now."

"Indigenous people, local communities, young people, women and girls, should be leaders of climate action and not victims of climate policies."

"There is no money going to Sub-Saharan Africa. Full stop. I would like to challenge everybody: Do more."

—Axel van Trotsenburg, Managing Director of Operations, World Bank

Have you read?

Cop27: climate conference jargon decoded, cop27: why it matters and 5 key areas for action, what is climate change adaptation and why is it a priority at cop27.

"We must see the so-called 'dash for gas' for what it really is: a dash down a bridge to nowhere, leaving the countries of the world facing climate chaos and billions in stranded assets, especially here in Africa. We have to move beyond the era of fossil fuel colonialism."

—Al Gore, former US Vice-President

"We are, in fact, climate negative. But despite this, we are highly climate vulnerable ... Promises made must be kept. Therefore, on behalf of all children and the next generation, we urgently call on historic emitters to do their part to safeguard our world. My country is doing our part with the limited resources and capacity."

—Chandrikapersad Santokhi, President of Suriname

"Climate security goes hand in hand with energy security. Putin's abhorrent war in Ukraine and rising energy prices across the world are not a reason to go slow on climate change. They are a reason to act faster."

—Rishi Sunak, British Prime Minister

"No matter how much the external environment changes, and no matter how many challenges we face, China has firm determination to achieve this vision of carbon neutrality."

—Xie Zhenhua, Chinese Climate Envoy

"It is up to the G20 countries responsible for 80% of global emissions that we are beholden to for our survival. Our survival is being held to ransom at the cost of profit and an unwillingness to act despite the ability to do so."

—Mark Brown, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands

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Four Powerful Climate Change Speeches to Inspire You

To support the running costs of Moral Fibres, this post may contain affiliate links. This means Moral Fibres may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to readers, on items purchased through these links.

Looking to be inspired to take action on climate change? Watch these four powerful climate change speeches, and get ready to change the world.

Climate change is the most pressing concern facing us and our planet. As such, we need powerful action, and fast, from both global leaders and global corporations, right down to individuals.

I’ve got over 70 climate change and sustainability quotes to motivate people and inspire climate action. But if it is more than quotes you need then watch these four impassioned climate change speeches. These speeches are particularly good if you are looking for even more inspiration to inspire others to take climate action.

The Sustainability Speeches To Motivate You

Here are the speeches to know – I’ve included a video of each speech plus a transcript to make it easy to get all the information you need. Use the quick links to jump to a specific speech or keep scrolling to see all the speeches.

Greta Thunberg’s Climate Change Speech at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit

Leonardo dicaprio’s climate change speech at the 2014 un climate summit, yeb sano’s climate change speech at the united nations climate summit in warsaw, greta thunberg’s speech at houses of parliament.

In September 2019 climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the U.N.’s Climate Action Summit in New York City with this inspiring climate change speech:

Here’s the full transcript of Greta Thunberg’s climate change speech. It begins with Greta’s response to a question about the message she has for world leaders.

My message is that we’ll be watching you.

This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.

You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.

The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5°C, and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.

Fifty per cent may be acceptable to you. But those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice. They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO 2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist.

So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us — we who have to live with the consequences.

To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5°C global temperature rise – the best odds given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the world had 420 gigatons of CO 2 left to emit back on January 1st, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons.

How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just ‘business as usual’ and some technical solutions? With today’s emissions levels, that remaining CO 2 budget will be entirely gone within less than 8 and a half years.

There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today, because these numbers are too uncomfortable. And you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.

You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.

We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.

Leonardo DiCaprio gave an impassioned climate change speech at the 2014 UN Climate Summit. Watch it now:

Here’s a transcript of Leonardo DiCaprio’s climate change speech in case you’re looking to quote any part of it.

Thank you, Mr Secretary General, your excellencies, ladies and gentleman, and distinguished guests. I’m honoured to be here today, I stand before you not as an expert but as a concerned citizen. One of the 400,000 people who marched in the streets of New York on Sunday, and the billions of others around the world who want to solve our climate crisis.

As an actor, I pretend for a living. I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems.

I believe humankind has looked at climate change in that same way. As if it were fiction, happening to someone else’s planet, as if pretending that climate change wasn’t real would somehow make it go away.

But I think we know better than that. Every week, we’re seeing new and undeniable climate events, evidence that accelerated climate change is here now .  We know that droughts are intensifying.  Our oceans are warming and acidifying, with methane plumes rising up from beneath the ocean floor. We are seeing extreme weather events, increased temperatures, and the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melting at unprecedented rates, decades ahead of scientific projections.

None of this is rhetoric, and none of it is hysteria. It is fact. The scientific community knows it. Industry and governments know it. Even the United States military knows it. The chief of the US Navy’s Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Locklear, recently said that climate change is our single greatest security threat.

My friends, this body – perhaps more than any other gathering in human history – now faces that difficult task. You can make history or be vilified by it.

To be clear, this is not about just telling people to change their light bulbs or to buy a hybrid car. This disaster has grown BEYOND the choices that individuals make. This is now about our industries, and governments around the world taking decisive, large-scale action.

I am not a scientist, but I don’t need to be. Because the world’s scientific community has spoken, and they have given us our prognosis. If we do not act together, we will surely perish.

Now is our moment for action.

We need to put a price tag on carbon emissions and eliminate government subsidies for coal, gas, and oil companies. We need to end the free ride that industrial polluters have been given in the name of a free-market economy. They don’t deserve our tax dollars, they deserve our scrutiny. For the economy itself will die if our ecosystems collapse.

The good news is that renewable energy is not only achievable but good economic policy. New research shows that by 2050 clean, renewable energy could supply 100% of the world’s energy needs using existing technologies, and it would create millions of jobs.

This is not a partisan debate; it is a human one. Clean air and water, and a livable climate are inalienable human rights. And solving this crisis is not a question of politics. It is our moral obligation – if, admittedly, a daunting one.

We only get one planet. Humankind must become accountable on a massive scale for the wanton destruction of our collective home. Protecting our future on this planet depends on the conscious evolution of our species.

This is the most urgent of times, and the most urgent of messages.

Honoured delegates, leaders of the world, I pretend for a living. But you do not. The people made their voices heard on Sunday around the world and the momentum will not stop. And now it’s YOUR turn, the time to answer the greatest challenge of our existence on this planet is now.

I beg you to face it with courage. And honesty. Thank you.

The Philippines’ lead negotiator  Yeb Sano  addressed the opening session of the UN climate summit in Warsaw in November 2013. In this emotional and powerful climate change speech he called for urgent action to prevent a repeat of the devastating storm that hit parts of the Philippines:

Transcript of Yeb’s Climate Change Speech

Here’s a transcript of Yeb’s climate change speech:

Mr President, I have the honour to speak on behalf of the resilient people of the Republic of the Philippines.

At the onset, allow me to fully associate my delegation with the statement made by the distinguished Ambassador of the Republic of Fiji, on behalf of G77 and China as well as the statement made by Nicaragua on behalf of the Like-Minded Developing Countries.

First and foremost, the people of the Philippines, and our delegation here for the United Nations Climate Change Convention’s 19 th  Conference of the Parties here in Warsaw, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your expression of sympathy to my country in the face of this national difficulty.

In the midst of this tragedy, the delegation of the Philippines is comforted by the warm hospitality of Poland, with your people offering us warm smiles everywhere we go. Hotel staff and people on the streets, volunteers and personnel within the National Stadium have warmly offered us kind words of sympathy. So, thank you Poland.

The arrangements you have made for this COP is also most excellent and we highly appreciate the tremendous effort you have put into the preparations for this important gathering.

We also thank all of you, friends and colleagues in this hall and from all corners of the world as you stand beside us in this difficult time.

I thank all countries and governments who have extended your solidarity and for offering assistance to the Philippines.

I thank the youth present here and the billions of young people around the world who stand steadfastly behind my delegation and who are watching us shape their future.

I thank civil society, both who are working on the ground as we race against time in the hardest-hit areas, and those who are here in Warsaw prodding us to have a sense of urgency and ambition.

We are deeply moved by this manifestation of human solidarity. This outpouring of support proves to us that as a human race, we can unite; that as a species, we care.

It was barely 11 months ago in Doha when my delegation appealed to the world… to open our eyes to the stark reality that we face… as then we confronted a catastrophic storm that resulted in the costliest disaster in Philippine history.

Less than a year hence, we cannot imagine that a disaster much bigger would come. With an apparent cruel twist of fate, my country is being tested by this hellstorm called Super Typhoon Haiyan, which has been described by experts as the strongest typhoon that has ever made landfall in the course of recorded human history.

It was so strong that if there was a Category 6, it would have fallen squarely in that box. Up to this hour, we remain uncertain as to the full extent of the devastation, as information trickles in an agonisingly slow manner because electricity lines and communication lines have been cut off and may take a while before these are restored.

The initial assessment shows that Haiyan left a wake of massive devastation that is unprecedented, unthinkable, and horrific, affecting 2/3 of the Philippines, with about half a million people now rendered homeless, and with scenes reminiscent of the aftermath of a tsunami, with a vast wasteland of mud and debris and dead bodies.

According to satellite estimates, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also estimated that Haiyan achieved a minimum pressure between around 860 mbar (hPa; 25.34 inHg) and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center estimated Haiyan to have attained one-minute sustained winds of 315 km/h (195 mph) and gusts up to 378 km/h (235 mph) making it the strongest typhoon in modern recorded history.

Despite the massive efforts that my country had exerted in preparing for the onslaught of this monster of a storm, it was just a force too powerful, and even as a nation familiar with storms, Super Typhoon Haiyan was nothing we have ever experienced before, or perhaps nothing that any country has every experienced before.

The picture in the aftermath is ever so slowly coming into clearer focus. The devastation is colossal. And as if this is not enough, another storm is brewing again in the warm waters of the western Pacific. I shudder at the thought of another typhoon hitting the same places where people have not yet even managed to begin standing up.

To anyone who continues to deny the reality that is climate change, I dare you to get off your ivory tower and away from the comfort of your armchair.

I dare you to go to the islands of the Pacific, the islands of the Caribbean and the islands of the Indian Ocean and see the impacts of rising sea levels; to the mountainous regions of the Himalayas and the Andes to see communities confronting glacial floods, to the Arctic where communities grapple with the fast dwindling polar ice caps, to the large deltas of the Mekong, the Ganges, the Amazon, and the Nile where lives and livelihoods are drowned, to the hills of Central America that confront similar monstrous hurricanes, to the vast savannahs of Africa where climate change has likewise become a matter of life and death as food and water becomes scarce.

Not to forget the massive hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern seaboard of North America. And if that is not enough, you may want to pay a visit to the Philippines right now.

The science has given us a picture that has become much more in focus. The IPCC report on climate change and extreme events underscored the risks associated with changes in the patterns as well as the frequency of extreme weather events.

Science tells us that simply, climate change will mean more intense tropical storms. As the Earth warms up, that would include the oceans. The energy that is stored in the waters off the Philippines will increase the intensity of typhoons and the trend we now see is that more destructive storms will be the new norm.

This will have profound implications on many of our communities, especially who struggle against the twin challenges of the development crisis and the climate change crisis. Typhoons such as Yolanda (Haiyan) and its impacts represent a sobering reminder to the international community that we cannot afford to procrastinate on climate action. Warsaw must deliver on enhancing ambition and should muster the political will to address climate change.

In Doha, we asked, “If not us then who? If not now, then when? If not here, then where?” (borrowed from Philippine student leader Ditto Sarmiento during Martial Law). It may have fell on deaf ears. But here in Warsaw, we may very well ask these same forthright questions. “If not us, then who? If not now, then when? If not here in Warsaw, where?”

What my country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness. The climate crisis is madness.

We can stop this madness. Right here in Warsaw.

It is the 19 th  COP, but we might as well stop counting because my country refuses to accept that a COP30 or a COP40 will be needed to solve climate change.

And because it seems that despite the significant gains we have had since the UNFCCC was born, 20 years hence we continue to fail in fulfilling the ultimate objective of the Convention. 

Now, we find ourselves in a situation where we have to ask ourselves – can we ever attain the objective set out in Article 2 – which is to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system? By failing to meet the objective of the Convention, we may have ratified the doom of vulnerable countries.

And if we have failed to meet the objective of the Convention, we have to confront the issue of loss and damage.

Loss and damage from climate change is a reality today across the world. Developed country emissions reduction targets are dangerously low and must be raised immediately. But even if they were in line with the demand of reducing 40-50% below 1990 levels, we would still have locked-in climate change and would still need to address the issue of loss and damage.

We find ourselves at a critical juncture and the situation is such that even the most ambitious emissions reductions by developed countries, who should have been taking the lead in combatting climate change in the past two decades, will not be enough to avert the crisis.

It is now too late, too late to talk about the world being able to rely on Annex I countries to solve the climate crisis. We have entered a new era that demands global solidarity in order to fight climate change and ensure that the pursuit of sustainable human development remains at the fore of the global community’s efforts. This is why means of implementation for developing countries is ever more crucial.

It was the Secretary-general of the UN Conference on Environment and Development, Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro, 1992, Maurice Strong who said that “History reminds us that what is not possible today, may be inevitable tomorrow.”

We cannot sit and stay helpless staring at this international climate stalemate. It is now time to take action. We need an emergency climate pathway.

I speak for my delegation. But more than that, I speak for the countless people who will no longer be able to speak for themselves after perishing from the storm. I also speak for those who have been orphaned by this tragedy. I also speak for the people now racing against time to save survivors and alleviate the suffering of the people affected by the disaster.

We can take drastic action now to ensure that we prevent a future where super typhoons are a way of life. Because we refuse, as a nation, to accept a future where super typhoons like Haiyan become a fact of life. We refuse to accept that running away from storms, evacuating our families, suffering the devastation and misery, having to count our dead, become a way of life. We simply refuse to.

We must stop calling events like these as natural disasters. It is not natural when people continue to struggle to eradicate poverty and pursue development and get battered by the onslaught of a monster storm now considered as the strongest storm ever to hit land. It is not natural when science already tells us that global warming will induce more intense storms. It is not natural when the human species has already profoundly changed the climate.

Disasters are never natural. They are the intersection of factors other than physical. They are the accumulation of the constant breach of economic, social, and environmental thresholds.

Most of the time disasters are a result of inequity and the poorest people of the world are at greatest risk because of their vulnerability and decades of maldevelopment, which I must assert is connected to the kind of pursuit of economic growth that dominates the world. The same kind of pursuit of so-called economic growth and unsustainable consumption that has altered the climate system.

Now, if you will allow me, to speak on a more personal note.

Super Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in my family’s hometown and the devastation is staggering. I struggle to find words even for the images that we see from the news coverage. I struggle to find words to describe how I feel about the losses and damages we have suffered from this cataclysm.

Up to this hour, I agonize while waiting for word as to the fate of my very own relatives. What gives me renewed strength and great relief was when my brother succeeded in communicating with us that he has survived the onslaught. In the last two days, he has been gathering bodies of the dead with his own two hands. He is hungry and weary as food supplies find it difficult to arrive in the hardest-hit areas.

We call on this COP to pursue work until the most meaningful outcome is in sight. Until concrete pledges have been made to ensure mobilisation of resources for the Green Climate Fund. Until the promise of the establishment of a loss and damage mechanism has been fulfilled. Until there is assurance on finance for adaptation. Until concrete pathways for reaching the committed 100 billion dollars have been made. Until we see real ambition on stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations. We must put the money where our mouths are.

This process under the UNFCCC has been called many names. It has been called a farce. It has been called an annual carbon-intensive gathering of useless frequent flyers. It has been called many names. But it has also been called “The Project To Save The Planet”. It has been called “Saving Tomorrow Today”. We can fix this. We can stop this madness. Right now. Right here, in the middle of this football field.

I call on you to lead us. And let Poland be forever known as the place we truly cared to stop this madness. Can humanity rise to the occasion? I still believe we can.

Finally, in April 2019, Greta spoke at the Houses of Parliament in the UK. Here she gave this powerful climate change speech to the UK’s political leaders:

Transcript of Greta’s Climate Change Speech

Here is the full transcript of Greta’s climate change speech:

My name is Greta Thunberg. I am 16 years old. I come from Sweden. And I speak on behalf of future generations.

I know many of you don’t want to listen to us – you say we are just children. But we’re only repeating the message of the united climate science.

Many of you appear concerned that we are wasting valuable lesson time, but I assure you we will go back to school the moment you start listening to science and give us a future. Is that really too much to ask?

In the year 2030, I will be 26 years old. My little sister Beata will be 23. Just like many of your own children or grandchildren. That is a great age, we have been told. When you have all of your life ahead of you. But I am not so sure it will be that great for us.

I was fortunate to be born in a time and place where everyone told us to dream big. I could become whatever I wanted to. I could live wherever I wanted to. People like me had everything we needed and more. Things our grandparents could not even dream of. We had everything we could ever wish for and yet now we may have nothing.

Now we probably don’t even have a future anymore.

Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money. It was stolen from us every time you said that the sky was the limit and that you only live once.

You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to. And the saddest thing is that most children are not even aware of the fate that awaits us. We will not understand it until it’s too late. And yet we are the lucky ones. Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences. But their voices are not heard.

Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?

Around the year 2030, 10 years 252 days and 10 hours away from now, we will be in a position where we set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control, that will most likely lead to the end of our civilisation as we know it. That is unless, in that time, permanent and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society have taken place, including a reduction of CO 2 emissions by at least 50%.

And please note that these calculations are depending on inventions that have not yet been invented at scale, inventions that are supposed to clear the atmosphere of astronomical amounts of carbon dioxide.

Furthermore, these calculations do not include unforeseen tipping points and feedback loops like the extremely powerful methane gas escaping from rapidly thawing arctic permafrost.

Nor do these scientific calculations include already locked-in warming hidden by toxic air pollution. Nor the aspect of equity – or climate justice – clearly stated throughout the Paris Agreement, which is absolutely necessary to make it work on a global scale.

We must also bear in mind that these are just calculations. Estimations. That means that these “points of no return” may occur a bit sooner or later than 2030. No one can know for sure. We can, however, be certain that they will occur approximately in these timeframes because these calculations are not opinions or wild guesses.

These projections are backed up by scientific facts, concluded by all nations through the IPCC. Nearly every single major national scientific body around the world unreservedly supports the work and findings of the IPCC.

Did you hear what I just said? Is my English OK? Is the microphone on? Because I’m beginning to wonder.

During the last six months, I have travelled around Europe for hundreds of hours in trains, electric cars, and buses, repeating these life-changing words over and over again. But no one seems to be talking about it, and nothing has changed. In fact, the emissions are still rising.

When I have been travelling around to speak in different countries, I am always offered help to write about the specific climate policies in specific countries. But that is not really necessary. Because the basic problem is the same everywhere. And the basic problem is that basically nothing is being done to halt – or even slow – climate and ecological breakdown, despite all the beautiful words and promises.

The UK is, however, very special. Not only for its mind-blowing historical carbon debt but also for its current, very creative, carbon accounting.

Since 1990 the UK has achieved a 37% reduction of its territorial CO 2 emissions, according to the Global Carbon Project. And that does sound very impressive. But these numbers do not include emissions from aviation, shipping, and those associated with imports and exports. If these numbers are included the reduction is around 10% since 1990 – or an average of 0.4% a year, according to Tyndall Manchester. And the main reason for this reduction is not a consequence of climate policies, but rather a 2001 EU directive on air quality that essentially forced the UK to close down its very old and extremely dirty coal power plants and replace them with less dirty gas power stations. And switching from one disastrous energy source to a slightly less disastrous one will of course result in a lowering of emissions.

But perhaps the most dangerous misconception about the climate crisis is that we have to “lower” our emissions. Because that is far from enough.

Our emissions have to stop if we are to stay below 1.5-2 ° C of warming. The “lowering of emissions” is of course necessary but it is only the beginning of a fast process that must lead to a stop within a couple of decades or less. And by “stop” I mean net-zero – and then quickly on to negative figures. That rules out most of today’s politics.

The fact that we are speaking of “lowering” instead of “stopping” emissions is perhaps the greatest force behind the continuing business as usual. The UK’s active current support of new exploitation of fossil fuels – for example, the UK shale gas fracking industry, the expansion of its North Sea oil and gas fields, the expansion of airports as well as the planning permission for a brand new coal mine – is beyond absurd.

This ongoing irresponsible behaviour will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind.

People always tell me and the other millions of school strikers that we should be proud of ourselves for what we have accomplished. But the only thing that we need to look at is the emission curve. And I’m sorry, but it’s still rising. That curve is the only thing we should look at.

Every time we make a decision we should ask ourselves; how will this decision affect that curve? We should no longer measure our wealth and success in the graph that shows economic growth, but in the curve that shows the emissions of greenhouse gases. We should no longer only ask: “Have we got enough money to go through with this?” but also: “Have we got enough of the carbon budget to spare to go through with this?” That should and must become the centre of our new currency.

Many people say that we don’t have any solutions to the climate crisis. And they are right. Because how could we? How do you “solve” the greatest crisis that humanity has ever faced? How do you “solve” a war? How do you “solve” going to the moon for the first time? How do you “solve” inventing new inventions?

The climate crisis is both the easiest and the hardest issue we have ever faced. The easiest because we know what we must do. We must stop the emissions of greenhouse gases. The hardest because our current economics are still totally dependent on burning fossil fuels, and thereby destroying ecosystems in order to create everlasting economic growth.

“So, exactly how do we solve that?” you ask us – the schoolchildren striking for the climate.

And we say: “No one knows for sure. But we have to stop burning fossil fuels and restore nature and many other things that we may not have quite figured out yet.”

Then you say: “That’s not an answer!”

So we say: “We have to start treating the crisis like a crisis – and act even if we don’t have all the solutions.”

“That’s still not an answer,” you say.

Then we start talking about circular economy and rewilding nature and the need for a just transition. Then you don’t understand what we are talking about.

We say that all those solutions needed are not known to anyone and therefore we must unite behind the science and find them together along the way. But you do not listen to that. Because those answers are for solving a crisis that most of you don’t even fully understand. Or don’t want to understand.

You don’t listen to the science because you are only interested in solutions that will enable you to carry on like before. Like now. And those answers don’t exist anymore. Because you did not act in time.

Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling.

Sometimes we just simply have to find a way. The moment we decide to fulfil something, we can do anything. And I’m sure that the moment we start behaving as if we were in an emergency, we can avoid climate and ecological catastrophe. Humans are very adaptable: we can still fix this. But the opportunity to do so will not last for long. We must start today. We have no more excuses.

We children are not sacrificing our education and our childhood for you to tell us what you consider is politically possible in the society that you have created. We have not taken to the streets for you to take selfies with us, and tell us that you really admire what we do.

We children are doing this to wake the adults up. We children are doing this for you to put your differences aside and start acting as you would in a crisis. We children are doing this because we want our hopes and dreams back.

I hope my microphone was on. I hope you could all hear me.

Hopefully, these climate change speeches will encourage you to take action in your local community. If you need more inspiration then head to my post on the best TED Talks on climate change , my guide to the best YouTube videos on climate change , and the sustainability poems to inspire you.

Found this post useful? Please consider buying me a virtual coffee to help support the site’s running costs.

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Wendy Graham is a sustainability expert and the founder of Moral Fibres, where's she's written hundreds of articles on since starting the site in 2013. She's dedicated to bringing you sustainability advice you can trust.

Wendy holds a BSc (Hons) in Environmental Geography and an MSc (with Distinction) in Environmental Sustainability - specialising in environmental education.

As well as this, Wendy brings 17 years of professional experience working in the sustainability sector to the blog.

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Transcript: Greta Thunberg's Speech At The U.N. Climate Action Summit

Climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, addressed the U.N.'s Climate Action Summit in New York City on Monday. Here's the full transcript of Thunberg's speech, beginning with her response to a question about the message she has for world leaders.

"My message is that we'll be watching you.

"This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!

"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

'This Is All Wrong,' Greta Thunberg Tells World Leaders At U.N. Climate Session

"For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.

"You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.

"The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees [Celsius], and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.

"Fifty percent may be acceptable to you. But those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice. They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist.

"So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us — we who have to live with the consequences.

"To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees global temperature rise – the best odds given by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] – the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on Jan. 1st, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons.

"How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just 'business as usual' and some technical solutions? With today's emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than 8 1/2 years.

"There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today, because these numbers are too uncomfortable. And you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.

"You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.

"We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.

"Thank you."

• climate change
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Lessons from The Economist’s essay contest on climate change

We can’t tell you how to stop climate change, but we can tell you how to write a good essay.

The Economist

Reading a zillion essays numbs the mind. But poring over the vast volume teaches you a few things about how to write an article that stands out.

The Economist ’s Open Future essay competition asked people between 16 and 25 years old to answer the question: “What fundamental economic and political change, if any, is needed for an effective response to climate change?”

Entrants had 1,000 words. (The shortest essay took just two: “Abolish capitalism”.) Nearly 2,400 people from 130 countries and territories participated. You can read the winning essay here , quotes from finalists’ essays here and excerpts from other essays here .

Overall the quality was high. The essays educated us, entertained us and occasionally moved us. However at other times, a special spark was missing. We cannot give feedback on individual essays, but several judges shared their thoughts on what it takes to stand out, and what to avoid.

Where essays fell short

• Answer the question. Early. Clearly. In this case: what is the change you are advocating? Is it “fundamental?” Is it “economic and political?” The reader shouldn’t have to hunt to find it.
• Don’t bother explaining what climate change is and why it’s bad — we probably know that already. No need to “clear your throat,” so to speak. Read our description of the essay question — but certainly don’t repeat it back to us.
• Edit, edit, edit. Cut, cut, cut. “There is no such thing as writing, only rewriting,” an old adage goes. Some long paragraphs could have been written as a single, short sentence.
• Will your answer work? Creativity and ambition are good, but so is pragmatism. Hypotheticals are fun, but realism gets you further.
• Thou shalt not steal. It’s obvious when one plagiarises. It’s even more obvious when it’s from Wikipedia.
• We asked for your ideas, not a summary of others’. Cite experts only if it’s relevant to your point; don’t try to impress by name-dropping. If you’re proposing something that already exists, tell us why it hasn’t worked in the past and why it would now.
• Avoid lists. Take a single idea and support it with arguments. If you feel you must put forward more than one answer, go for a few (not 20!) and be sure to tie them together.
• Don’t be trite. Avoid cliches like the devil. Don’t generalise if you can be specific or cite a fact.
• Climate change is a global problem, so it needs a global solution. It’s great to use a local or national solution, but explain how it can be applied more globally. Though America is an important actor, it’s not alone.
• Balance ideas with their expression. An essay can’t rely exclusively on good writing or good argumentation; it needs both.
• The ending is important and should follow from what preceded it. In many entries, the conclusion took a different turn or adopted a new voice. This confuses rather than impresses.

Where essays stood out

• Be original. Consider how others may answer the question — and do something else. Strive for a novel idea. Let us hear your unique voice. Within reason and with care, experiment with the format and style.
• Catch us with the first sentence. A gripping introduction will keep readers in.
• Identify what’s wrong with common thinking. Find something overlooked. Undermine something that’s overrated. Defend something with a bad reputation. Tell us what you see that others don’t, and we’ll be inclined to trust you to tell us what will work.
• Personal stories make the ideas come alive. They blend the analytical with the emotional, for memorable prose. But be sure they are directly related to your argument.
• Know your audience. The archetypal reader isn’t a teacher or fellow student, but a thoughtful generalist. Essays that advanced through the rounds were positioned this way.
• Research. Familiarise yourself with the issue before commenting on it. It was a problem when old ideas were presented as if new. The best essays built on past ideas to speak more convincingly about the future.
• When citing experts, be distinctive. Choose extraordinary ones we may not have heard of, or say something new about the ones we have. But don’t be the 800th person to evoke the Green New Deal or Greta Thunberg unless you’re saying something unmissably shrewd.
• Good essays take the reader from one place to another. As with a film, elegant cuts between close-ups and long shots give more depth and texture, and keep the audience interested, curious for more.

After reading hundreds of essays over six weeks, the judges’ minds were not entirely numbed; they were also enriched. A jury of 16 people evaluated the entries in four phases: initial review; agreeing on a long-list of 20 finalists; choosing a shortlist of six essays and picking a winner. Discovering young people’s ideas on how to solve a crucial global problem was inspiring. All the judges want to thank the participants for that.

Naomi Cohen, an assistant editor on The Economist ’s Open Future initiative, was a judge and the co-ordinator of the essay competition

Written by The Economist

Insight and opinion on international news, politics, business, finance, science, technology, books and arts.

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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.

Photograph by Mark Thiessen / National Geographic

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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One of the dominant themes that tied together the Leaders Summit on Climate on Thursday was a sense of relief that world leaders could once again count on the United States, which hosted the event, for climate action. 

In recent months, the US — the world’s largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases — rejoined the Paris agreement and recommitted to climate action . At the summit, US President Joe Biden nearly doubled his country’s previous emissions reductions pledge, with a bold aim to cut emissions by 50% by 2030, a significant pledge in the global race to net zero emissions . 

But the virtual event was also a sober reminder of the scale of the climate crisis. Dozens of world leaders queued up their video streams to describe how worsening natural disasters, floods, and droughts endanger global development goals . They warned that existing climate financing was inadequate and the current pace of economic transformation lagged far behind scientific recommendations.

At a parallel event on Thursday, Greta Thunberg railed against ongoing climate inaction. 

Leaders attending the climate summit seemed to recognize that the status quo is no longer viable and vowed to take bolder climate action in the lead up to the UN’s climate conference, known as COP26 , in Glasgow in November.

“The Leaders Summit achieved its aim of jumpstarting climate action in this critical year,” Manish Bapna, Interim President and CEO, World Resources Institute, said in a statement . “Some larger countries came forward with substantive emissions reduction commitments, as well as other announcements that will help speed the shift to a zero-carbon economy."

“The Summit sends a clear signal that the US is firmly back in the game and serious about taking on the global climate crisis,” he added. “For this, the Biden administration deserves high marks.”

Here are 16 of the best quotes from the day, in order of appearance, about the scale of the climate crisis and how it can be confronted. 

1. Kamala Harris, US Vice President

“As a global community, it is imperative that we act quickly and together to confront this crisis. And this will require innovation and collaboration around the world.  It will require the use of renewable energy and new technologies. And it will give each of our nations the opportunity to build healthier communities and stronger economies.”

2. Joe Biden, US President 

“The countries that take decisive action now to create the industries of the future will be the ones that reap the economic benefits of the clean energy boom that’s coming.”

3. Anthony Blinken, US Secretary of State

“It would be a mistake to see the climate only through the prism of threats. As we take concrete actions to reduce emissions and avoid the impacts of climate change, we have an opportunity.”

4. António Guterres, UN Secretary-General

“We need a green planet but the world is on red alert. We are at the verge of the abyss. We must make sure the next step is in the right direction. Leaders everywhere must take action. First by building a global coalition for net zero emissions by 2050 in every country, every region, every city, every company, and every industry.”

5. Xi Jinping, President of China

“We must be committed to harmony between man and nature. All things that grow live in harmony and benefit form the nourishment of nature. Mother Nature has nourished us and we must treat nature as our root. Respect it, protect it, and follow its laws.” 

6. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India

“Humanity is battling a global pandemic right now, and this event is a timely reminder that the grave threat of climate change has not disappeared.”

7. Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the UK

“If we’re going to tackle climate change, we have to deal with the disaster of habitat loss and species loss across our planet.”

8. Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany

“This is a herculean task, because this is nothing short of complete transformation of the way we do business.”

9. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia

“CO2 can stay in the air for hundreds of years so it’s not enough to tackle new emissions. It’s also important to take up the task of absorbing the CO2 that has accumulated in the atmosphere.” 

10. Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa

“We have to adhere to the principle of differentiated responsibilities and respective capacities. Poor countries have historically contributed the least to global emissions, but developing countries often suffer the most from the devastating effects of climate change.

11. Sergio Mattarella, President of Italy

“We need to reverse course and do it soon. The fiscal plans we are designing to help us recover from COVID-19 offer a unique opportunity. We can transform our economies and pursue a greener and more inclusive growth model.” 

12. David Kabua, President of the Marshall Islands 

“For millions of years our people have navigated these islands to build private communities and cultures. Today, we are navigating through the storm of climate change and we’re determined to do our part. We know what a safe harbor looks like.”

13. Alberto Fernández, President of Argentina 

“I hope that out of this summit we have a new pact. This is a time to dream. Nobody can work alone. We have to work together, we have to have social justice, financial justice, and environmental justice.” 

14. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission

“The Paris agreement is humanity’s life insurance. At the COP26 in Glasgow, we must show that we have all understood this and that we are ready for more climate action because we are getting dangerously close to 1.5 degrees of warming. Science tells us that it’s not too late yet but we must hurry.”

15. Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda

“The harmful effects of climate change are growing and the cost of mitigation and recovery is being counted in human lives and livelihoods. The economic situation of our countries was already grave before the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now dire. Particularly for tourism-dependent nations. We are literally teetering on the edge of despair.” 

16. Ali Bongo Ondimba, President of Gabon

“We are on course for disaster. It is our collective responsibility to act immediately and at a global scale to limit the climate crisis. There is no time to lose.” 

Defend the Planet

16 of the Best Quotes From This Week’s World Leaders’ Climate Summit

April 23, 2021

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Essay on Climate Change

Climate Change Essay - The globe is growing increasingly sensitive to climate change. It is currently a serious worldwide concern. The term "Climate Change" describes changes to the earth's climate. It explains the atmospheric changes that have occurred across time, spanning from decades to millions of years. Here are some sample essays on climate change.

100 Words Essay on Climate Change

200 words essay on climate change, 500 words essay on climate change.

The climatic conditions on Earth are changing due to climate change. Several internal and external variables, such as solar radiation, variations in the Earth's orbit, volcanic eruptions, plate tectonics, etc., are to blame for this.

There are strategies for climate change reduction. If not implemented, the weather might get worse, there might be water scarcity, there could be lower agricultural output, and it might affect people's ability to make a living. In order to breathe clean air and drink pure water, you must concentrate on limiting human activity. These are the simple measures that may be taken to safeguard the environment and its resources.

The climate of the Earth has changed significantly over time. While some of these changes were brought on by natural events like volcanic eruptions, floods, forest fires, etc., many of the changes were brought on by human activity. The burning of fossil fuels, domesticating livestock, and other human activities produce a significant quantity of greenhouse gases. This results in an increase of greenhouse effect and global warming which are the major causes for climate change.

Reasons of Climate Change

Some of the reasons of climate change are:

Deforestation

Excessive use of fossil fuels

Water and soil pollution

Plastic and other non biodegradable waste

Wildlife and nature extinction

Consequences of Climate Change

All kinds of life on earth will be affected by climate change if it continues to change at the same pace. The earth's temperature will increase, the monsoon patterns will shift, the sea level will rise, and there will be more frequent storms, volcano eruptions, and other natural calamities. The earth's biological and ecological equilibrium will be disturbed. Humans won't be able to access clean water or air to breathe when the environment becomes contaminated. The end of life on this earth is imminent. To reduce the issue of climate change, we need to bring social awareness along with strict measures to protect and preserve the natural environment.

A shift in the world's climatic pattern is referred to as climate change. Over the centuries, the climate pattern of our planet has undergone modifications. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has significantly grown.

When Did Climate Change Begin

It is possible to see signs of climate change as early as the beginning of the industrial revolution. The pace at which the manufacturers produced things on a large scale required a significant amount of raw materials. Since the raw materials being transformed into finished products now have such huge potential for profit, these business models have spread quickly over the world. Hazardous substances and chemicals build up in the environment as a result of company emissions and waste disposal.

Although climate change is a natural occurrence, it is evident that human activity is turning into the primary cause of the current climate change situation. The major cause is the growing population. Natural resources are utilised more and more as a result of the population's fast growth placing a heavy burden on the available resources. Over time, as more and more products and services are created, pollution will eventually increase.

Causes of Climate Change

There are a number of factors that have contributed towards weather change in the past and continue to do so. Let us look at a few:

Solar Radiation |The climate of earth is determined by how quickly the sun's energy is absorbed and distributed throughout space. This energy is transmitted throughout the world by the winds, ocean currents etc which affects the climatic conditions of the world. Changes in solar intensity have an effect on the world's climate.

Deforestation | The atmosphere's carbon dioxide is stored by trees. As a result of their destruction, carbon dioxide builds up more quickly since there are no trees to absorb it. Additionally, trees release the carbon they stored when we burn them.

Agriculture | Many kinds of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere by growing crops and raising livestock. Animals, for instance, create methane, a greenhouse gas that is 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The nitrous oxide used in fertilisers is roughly 300 times more strong than carbon dioxide.

How to Prevent Climate Change

We need to look out for drastic steps to stop climate change since it is affecting the resources and life on our planet. We can stop climate change if the right solutions are put in place. Here are some strategies for reducing climate change:

Raising public awareness of climate change

Prohibiting tree-cutting and deforestation.

Ensure the surroundings are clean.

Refrain from using chemical fertilisers.

Water and other natural resource waste should be reduced.

Protect the animals and plants.

Purchase energy-efficient goods and equipment.

Increase the number of trees in the neighbourhood and its surroundings.

Follow the law and safeguard the environment's resources.

Reduce the amount of energy you use.

During the last few decades especially, climate change has grown to be of concern. Global concern has been raised over changes in the Earth's climatic pattern. The causes of climate change are numerous, as well as the effects of it and it is our responsibility as inhabitants of this planet to look after its well being and leave it in a better condition for future generations.

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• NATURE BRIEFING
• 23 May 2024

Daily briefing: Why climate change is making flights rougher

• Katrina Krämer

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Chemists synthesized a ‘coordination complex’ with the element promethium (pink) at its centre. Oxygens on molecules in the complex are red, nitrogens are blue. Water molecules in solution surrounding the complex are pink and white in this rendering. Credit: D. M. Driscoll et al./Nature

Elusive element coaxed into compound

Promethium, a rare and mysterious radioactive element from the far reaches of the periodic table, has been made into a ‘complex’ for the first time. In this type of compound, promethium is bound to a few surrounding molecules. “It’s a tour de force,” says chemist Polly Arnold. The feat fills a long-standing gap in our knowledge of chemistry and could lead to better methods for separating promethium from similar elements in nuclear waste, for example.

Nature | 5 min read

Reference: Nature paper

Climate change is making flights rougher

In a rare incident, severe turbulence on a Singapore Airlines flight this week left one person dead and injured more than 70 people. “For anyone not wearing a seatbelt it would have been a bit like being on a rollercoaster without any restraint in place — it would have been terrifying,” says atmospheric researcher Paul Williams. Some scientists say that climate change is making clear-air turbulence more frequent and severe . “It is not that we’ll have to stop flying, or planes will start falling out of the sky,” says Williams. “I’m just saying that for every 10 minutes you’ve spent in severe turbulence in the past, it could be 20 or 30 minutes in the future.” A technology called LiDAR could let pilots identify cloudless turbulence that current radar systems miss, although it’s still expensive and bulky.

Bizarre bacteria scramble workflow of life

Bacteria have stunned biologists by reversing the usual flow of information. Typically genes written in DNA serve as the template for making RNA molecules, which are then translated into proteins. Some viruses are known to have an enzyme that reverses this flow by scribing RNA into DNA. Now scientists have found bacteria with a similar enzyme that can even make completely new genes — by reading RNA as a template. These genes create protective proteins when a bacterium is infected by a virus. “It should change the way we look at the genome,” says biochemist and study co-author Samuel Sternberg.

Nature | 4 min read

Reference: bioRxiv preprint (not peer reviewed)

A Chinese-language ChatGPT

The Chinese-made chatbot ChatGLM performs as well as ChatGPT on many measures and even outperforms it in Chinese , say its creators. Models that are tailored to different languages avoid “oversimplifying or neglecting the specific characteristics of certain languages and cultures”, says machine-learning specialist Adina Yakefu. Although ChatGPT and many of its rivals can respond in a variety of languages, most of them are built by US companies and mainly use English. By contrast, ChatGLM is designed to work in both Chinese and English.

Nature | 7 min read

Features & opinion

Egypt’s stunning egyptology mega-museum.

A sprawling complex with a view of the Pyramids of Giza will be the world’s largest museum and research centre devoted to a single civilization. It will house iconic artefacts such as King Tutankhamun’s armour and the oldest surviving wooden boat — a funeral barge belonging to Pharaoh Khufu. One of the museum’s aims is to take back some control of the study of Egyptology , a field that has long been entangled with historical colonialism. Yet some scholars wonder how the array of influences, including a near US$1-billion construction loan from Japan and the Egyptian army’s oversight of the project, will shape the facility’s future.

Nature | 14 min read

The mural wall near the museum’s entrance displays names of prominent ancient Egyptian kings and queens. Credit: Rehab Eldalil for Nature

Can maths solve social-justice problems?

The rigour of mathematics can help to identify, and sometimes even implement, solutions for problems such as social inequality or racial profiling. “One of the things that makes us mathematicians is our skills in logic and the questioning of assumptions,” says Carrie Diaz Eaton, whose work supports underserved communities in accessing much-needed resources. Mathematicians researching social justice say that helping to create real-world change can be tremendously gratifying . The important thing is to learn the language of new fields and listen to community leaders, activists and people affected by the issues.

Nature | 11 min read

Video: When heat hardens metal

Metals don’t always soften as they get hotter. Researchers discovered that heated metals behave in counterintuitive ways when they are shot with laser-powered micro-bullets. Under these extreme impacts — comparable with those from high-speed meteorites — pieces of copper, titanium and gold heated to higher temperatures wer e stronger than those not warmed up as much : the bullets created smaller craters and bounced away more. The effect could lead to new strategies for designing devices, for example in aerospace engineering.

Nature | 3 min video

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“nearly every session evolves into a heated debate about diverting resources to make a new ‘earth’ instead of fixing the one we have.”.

Role-playing games, such as one about colonizing Mars, can help us think through the complex decisions we will all face as the world warms, says education researcher Sam Illingworth. ( Nature | 5 min read )

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01569-5

Today, I take my proverbial hat off to chemist Stephen Cochrane, who set a new record for running the fastest marathon dressed as a scientist . He recalls the almost three hours he spent running in a lab coat, nitrile gloves and safety specs (while also carrying a measuring cylinder) as exhausting and sweaty. “I swore to myself that I’d never complain about PPE in a lab again,” Cochrane says.

Tell me which sciencey record you would like to break (alongside any feedback on this newsletter) by emailing [email protected] .

Thanks for reading,

Katrina Krämer, associate editor, Nature Briefing

With contributions by Flora Graham and Sarah Tomlin

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Climate Change is Killing Fireflies; Here's Why (and How) We Should Protect Them

Fireflies - also called lightning bugs, big dippers, and moon bugs- are known for their trademark glow. 

In addition to lighting up the evening sky with a twinkling luminescence, fireflies are hugely beneficial to the environment. 

They feed on plant-destroying garden pests. They don't bite or sting. And unlike most insects, they don't carry diseases. 

Now, the nocturnal beetle - yes, beetle ! - is finally getting global attention. 

At 2023's TEDWomen conference, conservationist and insect scientist Wan Faridah Akmal Jusoh took the stage to share her passion for fireflies and spread conservation awareness. 

As a child, Jusoh grew up along the coast of Peninsular Malaysia and traveled to a mangrove estuary to see countless fireflies - known as "kelip-kelip" in Malay - "flashing in almost perfect unison." 

From that day on, Jusoh became entranced by the small, twinkling insects and dedicated her scientific career to studying and preserving them. 

Every firefly species is unique.

"There are more than 2,000 firefly species that we know of, and they live all around the world," Jusoh said in her Talk. "They are found in every continent, except for Antarctica." 

Although most fireflies have wings and emit light, Jusoh said that each species has a "unique light pattern." 

"The light is produced by special organs under the abdomen. … Some glow continuously, while others emit discrete flashing patterns, almost like a secret code," Jusoh said in her Talk. 

Although the lights have a near-magical quality to them, Jusoh explained that fireflies are "so much more than pretty lights."

Firefly loss points to bigger issues in environmental health. 

"They are an essential part of a healthy ecosystem. The lifecycle of fireflies keeps the ecosystem balanced. Each firefly, in each indicative life stage, has specific needs for habitat to thrive," Jusoh explained. 

Jusoh said that dwindling firefly populations are huge indicators of an ecosystem in decline. 

"In a mangrove forest, when you see a population of fireflies decreasing, that could be due to water quality degradation, which can be a sign of a collapsing food chain," Jusoh said in her Talk. "Why? Because firefly larvae eat snails, and snails need good water quality to thrive." 

In a way, fireflies are a "canary in a coal mine" when it comes to signaling a habitat in distress. If fireflies are dying off, that means that other species in that same habitat are also declining, and the ecosystem is unhealthy. 

59 Powerful Quotes from John F. Kennedy

Fireflies need our help..

In addition to their ability to signal broader systemic issues in ecosystems around the world, fireflies play a unique role as both predator and prey in their local food chain. 

They feed on soft-bodied invertebrates like slugs, snails, and earthworms, while also providing food sources for critical species like birds, spiders, and frogs. In short, fireflies are crucial to food-web stability. 

Unfortunately, firefly populations are threatened by climate change and an abundance of artificial light pollution , which can "disorient, repel, or blind them." 

According to the Washington Post , nearly 1 in 3 firefly species in the United States and Canada may be threatened with extinction. 

"This is bad for the Earth [and] humans too," Jusoh warned. "It is a sign of overdevelopment that can induce climate effects such as flood and drought."

There are ways to make a difference for fireflies.

Fortunately, there are a number of eco-friendly actions you can take to help preserve fireflies in your own backyard. 

First, avoid using pesticides and chemical fertilizers in your yard. Although many pesticides promise an easy weed-killing solution for your lawn, they've also proven to be toxic to other organisms like birds, plants, and our glowing beetle friends. 

Other action steps include planting native trees and grasses and cutting down on mowing, which helps preserve pollinators like bees as well. 

You can also help by reducing excessive use of artificial lights, which endanger fireflies and make it more difficult for them to reproduce. Clicking off artificial lights at night also helps protect birds, owls, and other nocturnal wildlife that rely on moonlight and starlight for navigation, migration, and hunting. 

Lastly, you can help fireflies and cut down on your chore list at the same time by not raking leaves. Firefly larvae live in leaf piles along with butterflies, chipmunks, turtles, toads, and more. Raking or blowing leaves could disrupt a firefly's lifecycle before it even begins. 

Countless fireflies are still waiting to be discovered. 

With population decrease on the rise, Jusoh has become fiercely protective of fireflies and the "fascinating mysteries" they present. 

In Singapore, Jusoh discovered the first new luminescent firefly species - the Luciola Singapora - in the region in over a century. 

On another occasion, while exploring and collecting samples of new firefly colonies, Jusoh and her team found themselves surrounded by a bask of crocodiles blinking up at them out of the dark and narrowly escaped to safety. 

No matter where her self-made mission takes her, Jusoh hopes to identify and conserve firefly species around the world.  

Jusoh said: "Imagine how many more remarkable firefly species are waiting to be found. … Fireflies need your help before they flash that one last time.'"

Header image courtesy of Erin Lubin / TED

This article was originally published by Good Good Good . Good Good Good celebrates good news and highlights ways to make a difference.

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Pope Francis: ‘Path to climate resilience impeded by short-term greed’

By Devin Watkins

The Pontifical Academies of Science and Social Sciences is hosting a three-day summit in the Vatican that brings together mayors, governors, and experts to explore the theme: “From Climate Crisis to Climate Resilience.”

Pope Francis held an audience with participants in the summit on Thursday, the second day of the event.

In his address, the Pope lamented the worsening data regarding climate change, calling for urgent action “to protect people and nature.”

As developing nations suffer more directly the effects of climate change, he asked the political leaders from various nations whether “we are working for a culture of life or for a culture of death”.

“The wealthier nations, around 1 billion people, produce more than half the heat trapping pollutants,” said the Pope. “On the contrary, the 3 billion poorer people contribute less than 10%, yet they suffer 75% of the resulting damage.”

From victims of climate crisis to agents for change

Pope Francis recalled that destruction of the environment is “an offense against God” and a “structural sin” that endangers all people.

“We find ourselves faced with systemic challenges that are distinct yet interconnected: climate change, the loss of biodiversity, environmental decay, global disparities, lack of food security and threats to the dignity of the peoples affected by them,” he said.

Each of these issues, added the Pope, must be addressed urgently and collectively in order to safeguard the world’s poor, especially women and children, who bear a disproportionate burden.

Yet, he noted, those same women are not merely victims of climate change but also a “powerful force for resilience and adaptation.”

Combatting greed and short-termism

The Pope decried the cogs of global and national politics that are impeding actions to protect the most vulnerable exposed to climate change.

“An orderly progress,” he said, “is being held back by the greedy pursuit of short-term gains by polluting industries and by the spread of disinformation, which generates confusion and obstructs collective efforts for a change in course.”

Communities are dissolving and families are being forcibly dispersed, he said, adding that atmospheric pollution claims millions of lives each year.

Around 3.5 billion people are susceptible to climate change and therefore more likely to migrate, putting their lives at risk during “desperate journeys.”

Appeal for political shift

In response to this crisis, Pope Francis added his voice to the heartfelt appeal launched by the members of the summit.

With them, he called for a “universal approach and resolute activity” to bring about a political shift in direction.

The Pope also highlighted the need to “invert the global warming curve” by halving the rate of warming over the next 25 years.

Finally, he urged policy makers to harness the regenerative power of nature in order to remove vast quantites of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. He mentioned especially the Amazon Basin and the Congo, peat bogs, mangroves, oceans, coral reefs, farmlands, and glacial icecaps.

“This holistic approach can combat climate change, while also confronting the double crisis of the loss of biodiversity and inequality by cultivating the ecosystems that sustain life,” he said.

Urgency, compassion, determination

In conclusion, Pope Francis invited efforts to create synergy and global solidarity, as well as a “new financial architecture,” to respond to the needs of the global South and island states affected by climate emergencies.

“There is a need to act with urgency, compassion and determination, since the stakes could not be higher.”

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Biden Underestimates How Much Black Americans Care About This Issue

By Jerel Ezell

Dr. Ezell is an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies environmental politics and race.

Black voters will not only be a driving force in the 2024 elections; they will most likely be the driving force . Recent polls showed that roughly 20 percent of Black voters said they would probably vote for Donald Trump if the election were held today — the highest level of Black support for any Republican presidential candidate since the civil rights era. An additional 8 percent said they wouldn’t vote at all.

Democratic campaign officials are rightly worried, but there’s still time for President Biden to make up the ground he has lost. One way he could do it is by talking to Black America, especially young Black voters, about a sleeper issue: the climate crisis.

As an environment and climate researcher, I have found that despite the growing threat posed by climate change, politicians often seem to downplay the crisis when courting Black communities. Democratic strategists seem to see climate change as a key political issue only for white liberal elites and assume that other groups, like Black voters, are either unaware of or apathetic about it.

In reality, Black Americans are growing increasingly concerned about climate change.

An April poll from CBS News showed that 88 percent of Black adults said it was “somewhat” or “very important.” That makes sense: The most severe harms from climate change, from heat waves to extreme flooding, are already falling disproportionately on their communities. And it’s starting to be reflected in their political priorities. A poll conducted by the Brookings Institution last September showed that climate change is now a greater political concern for Black Americans than abortion or the state of democracy.

If Democrats are serious about making inroads with some of the people they have lost in these communities, they should begin by talking to voters about what the climate crisis looks like for them. In major Democratic strongholds such as Cleveland, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, heat waves and flooding are driving up electricity bills and destroying homes. If Mr. Biden were to routinely speak about these challenges and commit to creating forums for Black Americans to discuss climate concerns with government officials, his administration could earn back some of the faith it has squandered.

As a start, Mr. Biden could focus more intently on young Black people, a group passionate about climate change. Until May 19, when he gave the commencement address at Morehouse College, the president had largely refrained from direct engagement with young Black audiences on the campaign trail. When he speaks to Black voters, climate often is a footnote, or it’s mentioned in a policy buffet along with the economy, abortion and voting rights. During his speech at Morehouse, he mentioned the climate crisis explicitly only in a stray line about “heeding your generation’s call to a community free of gun violence and a planet free of climate crisis and showing your power to change the world.”

There’s a better way to talk about the issue, one that might galvanize Black voters to turn out in November. It’s not with airy calls for solving a global climate crisis but with a sharp message designed specifically for young Black Americans that focuses on how the Biden administration is investing in clean energy hubs, green work force development, tax credits for home improvement measures and community grants. Mr. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act earmarked roughly $2 billion for community-level climate justice initiatives, such as grants for green technology and reducing the health risks from heat and pollution that have ravaged Black communities, and there’s more money waiting to be doled out.

Mr. Biden has talked about this to some extent. At a recent campaign event in Detroit he told the audience, “We’re making the most significant investment ever in climate, including the most significant action on environmental justice ever. Every child in America deserves to breathe clean air.” And at an event with donors in Chicago he said, “We made the most significant investment in climate ever — ever, ever, ever.”

But somehow it isn’t breaking through to the rank and file. In a recent national poll, 56 percent of Black voters said they had heard “not much” or “nothing at all” about what Mr. Biden has accomplished on climate change. That needs to change.

Historically, the Democratic Party has courted Black voters by pledging to lower their health care costs, support their small businesses, bolster child tax credits and protect voting rights. When it has come time for major, strategic, long-term investments — in job creation, infrastructure, housing and schools — Democrats have been mostly derelict. What’s needed now is sustained interest and support to win back this important group.

This election could come down to several thousand votes in a few key states. If a renewed focus on climate change could help turn Black voters out in, say, Detroit or Philadelphia, it’s worth trying.

Black Americans’ longstanding commitment to the Democratic Party was born out of a desire to be a partner in the future of the country rather than to be an occasional beneficiary. But the polls suggest their patience with the Democratic Party’s election-year-only overtures has finally worn thin. Mr. Biden must make good on the investment that has been made in him by supporting Black America’s future. Given what’s at stake for young Black America as the climate crisis accelerates in the next few years, 2024 is perhaps the best, and last, opportunity for Democrats to take the lead in climate justice instead of playing catch-up, again, for another generation of Black Americans.

Jerel Ezell is a Fulbright scholar and an assistant professor in community health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studies environmental politics and race.

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What Does the European Court of Human Rights’ First Climate Change Decision Mean for Climate Policy?

On 9 April the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued its first ever comprehensive  decision  in a climate litigation case. The judges of the Court’s Grand Chamber found that Switzerland was in breach of its positive obligations to protect the health, well-being and quality of life of Swiss citizens from the impacts of climate change. This violation was attributed to the Swiss government’s failure to implement the robust regulatory framework necessary for fulfilling its commitment to reduce emissions as set out in the Paris Agreement.

As the dust begins to settle on this case, the critical question in the minds of many is what implication the judgment will have for how Switzerland and the  45 other signatories  of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) now address climate change.

Could this ruling catalyse the rapid cross-cutting action that is urgently needed to combat climate change?

Firstly, this is a question of  compliance : will Switzerland and the other ECHR signatories find the judgment a compelling reason to amend their climate laws in line with the guidance given by the court? Most commentators have focused on this element. While there appears to be a general consensus that the ruling will be “ transformative ”, some have treated it  more cautiously . In particular, while the case is expected to have “ knock-on ” effects on law and policymaking at the domestic and international levels, the extent of these impacts will take time to crystallise. Some researchers argue that, with its ruling, the ECtHR has merely set a “ minimum standard ” and thus they  question  whether it will lead to ECHR signatories significantly tightening their climate laws.

But importantly, this is also about  effectiveness : can the type of regulatory framework envisioned by the ECtHR drive countries to meet their legislative climate commitments? We focus our analysis below on this aspect, seeking to assess how effective the type of regulatory framework envisioned by the Court can be in accelerating credible climate action.

A domestic regulatory framework aligned with human rights obligations

In its judgment, the ECtHR set out a series of minimum requirements that a domestic climate change regulatory framework must meet to align with human rights obligations. These are firmly grounded in the architecture of the Paris Agreement, reflecting global practices in climate governance and  strong scientific foundations .

Climate framework laws  have emerged as a prominent tool to drive domestic climate action, including establishing regulatory frameworks. To date,  59 countries , including 25 ECHR signatories, have enacted climate framework laws. These laws set the  strategic direction for national climate policies,  and also often include long-term climate objectives: for example,  17 countries’ laws  contain net zero or climate neutrality targets.

The  scope  of climate framework laws varies significantly, however. Some countries, like  Nigeria , set up inter-ministerial coordination bodies to prepare national climate action plans designed to meet targets, whereas others like  Canada  mandate interim targets or carbon budgets based on the advice of independent expert advisory bodies. In some cases, like  Japan , legislation separately addresses mitigation and adaptation efforts. At times, countries also establish domestic governance processes across multiple laws, executive policies or through informal processes.

Unfortunately, when it comes to understanding the impact of such climate framework laws, empirical evidence remains limited, particularly regarding how impacts might vary across different socioeconomic and political contexts. However, research conducted by the Grantham Research Institute into the impacts of climate framework laws in the  UK , and most recently in  Germany, Ireland and New Zealand , has uncovered varied impacts across five key areas (see Figure 1). These findings indicate that the most significant impacts of climate framework laws are observed in the areas of governance and political debate.

Figure 1. Impacts of climate framework laws

Source:  Averchenkova et al. (2024 )

Mapping the Court’s minimum requirements against the building blocks of effective climate laws

The ECtHR’s specified set of minimum requirements for a State’s regulatory framework on climate change (paragraph 550 of the judgment) align closely with what  our research identifies  as the core building blocks of effective climate framework laws – see Table 1 below. Not only do these elements of climate laws have the most direct influence, they also lead to the most significant impacts. Our research shows that these building blocks directly contribute to the robustness of regulatory frameworks, ensuring that climate action is both ambitious and grounded in scientific evidence.

Table 1. The ECtHR’s minimum requirements mapped against our identified building blocks for effective climate framework laws

The similarities between the ECtHR’s stipulated requirements for climate regulatory frameworks and the building blocks that make climate framework laws most effective suggest that the approach required by the Court could have significant positive impacts.

However, while the identified components are crucial, they may not be sufficient on their own to catalyse rapid and enduring change. For example, although many climate framework laws mandate public consultation, the specifics of these processes are often imprecisely defined, leaving uncertainty about how public participation, stakeholder engagement and deliberative processes are to be continuously or formally integrated into an institutional framework. This integration is vital for ensuring public acceptance of climate policies.

The ECtHR addressed this need in paragraph 554 of its judgment, underscoring the importance of public participation and access to information in developing climate policies. The extent to which this aspect of the judgment will influence future legislative practices and improve the inclusivity and effectiveness of climate governance remains an open question.

Helpful guidance from the Court – but ultimately it comes down to political will

Our research also highlights that there are significant challenges to implementing climate framework laws: in particular, without sustained political will, enforcement becomes very difficult. Another recurring issue is the absence of stringent penalties for non-compliance, which undermines the credibility of these laws and poses risks to democratic accountability. Litigation, while a last resort, can strengthen both administrative and political accountability for fulfilling climate commitments. The  KlimaSeniorinnen  ruling highlighted significant gaps in Switzerland’s regulatory framework and its failure to meet previous emissions targets, underscoring the judiciary’s role in holding states accountable for their climate obligations.

The ECtHR has set out clear directions for member states to follow to align their climate policies with human rights obligations. Domestic legislators across Europe must give these requirements serious consideration to ensure their climate laws not only meet these minimum standards but also effectively contribute to global climate goals. This is imperative for both environmental sustainability and the protection of fundamental human rights that climate change is affecting.

Isabela Keuschnigg

Isabela Keuschnigg is a Legal Officer at Opportunity Green and a Research Assistant at the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Catherine Higham

Catherine Higham is a Policy Fellow and Coordinator of the Climate Change Laws of the World project at the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Joana Setzer

Joana Setzer is an Associate Professor at the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Tiffanie Chan

Tiffanie Chan is a Policy Analyst at the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

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