What is climate change?
Climate change is caused by accumulating greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, resulting in large-scale, long-term shifts in our planet’s weather patterns and an increase in the average temperature often referred to as 'global warming'.
Climate and weather are often confused. Weather refers to short-term changes in atmospheric conditions, while climate refers to changes over a much longer period. This is why we still experience cold, snowy days even though we are now facing a climate crisis.
The impact of climate change can be seen everywhere, from melting glaciers resulting in a global rise in sea level, to heavier rainstorms, more intense droughts, more frequent heatwaves, and other extreme weather events, threatening lives and nature across our planet.
The key points about climate change are summarised below:
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© Day's Edge ProductionsMore It’s usually a natural occurrence
The Earth’s climate has always changed over millennia because of natural processes, with temperatures rising and falling over thousands of years. This can be due to changes in the sun's activity or volcanic eruptions, for example.
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© James Morgan / WWF-UKMore But not at the current rate
Climate change is happening at a far faster rate than ever before. The current pace of global warming hasn’t been seen for over 200 million years, giving people and wildlife very little time to react and adapt.
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© Global Warming Images / WWFMore It is caused by human activities
The science is clear that the rate of global warming we are seeing today is caused by human activities, primarily due to excessive burning of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution (like coal, oil and gas), large-scale deforestation, and massively increased agricultural activities.
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© David Bebber / WWF-UKMore It requires urgent and strong actions
In order to prevent the worst effects to people and wildlife all over the world we must act now.
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Climate change terms explained
We know climate change can be a complicated topic with lots of buzzwords thrown around. So we have a compiled a list of words and phrases below to help demystify them.
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© Global Warming Images WWFGlobal warming
Global warming refers to the rise in Earth’s temperature over a long period of time due to accumulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
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© Global Warming Images / WWFGreenhouse Gasses
Greenhouse gases are gases in our Earth’s atmosphere that trap and retain some of the sun’s heat. This process is known as the ‘greenhouse effect’. In the right amount, they make life on Earth possible – without them, the world would be mostly frozen. However, too much is dangerous, as excess greenhouse gases trap too much heat and contribute to global warming.
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Carbon Dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a key greenhouse gas, because it accounts for the majority of greenhouse gases. It is essential for plant growth and is naturally released by all life forms when they breathe. However, it becomes problematic when there is too much in the atmosphere – most of this excess comes from burning fossil fuels.
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© Global Warming Images / WWFMethane
Methane is an important greenhouse gas because it can trap a lot more heat than carbon dioxide. It is mostly a by-product of cattle ranching and rice cultivation. Burning fossil fuels and landfills also releases methane.
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Nitrous Oxide
Nitrous oxide is an important greenhouse gas. While it accounts for a small proportion of greenhouse gases, it traps a huge amount of heat and stays in the atmosphere for a very long time. Most nitrous oxide is produced by farming and industrial activities.
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© Luis Barreto / WWF-UKCarbon Cycle
The carbon cycle is the natural process by which carbon gases are released and absorbed across the world. This determines the overall levels of carbon gases in the atmosphere.
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© WWF-UKNet Zero
Reaching net zero means balancing the volume of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere (for example, by burning fossil fuels) with the amount removed from the atmosphere (for example, by trees). To achieve net zero, the first thing we need to do is reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible, striving to get as close to zero emissions as we can. The remaining emissions can then be reabsorbed by carbon sink, such as forests and oceans. If we achieve this, in theory, we will no longer be contributing to the climate crisis.
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© James Morgan / WWF-USFeedback effects
The impacts of climate change can fuel each other, triggering a cascade of irreversible effects. For example, because polar ice is white, it reflects heat and light from the sun away from the Earth and back into space; this is called the ‘albedo effect’. However, ice is now melting quicker than normal because of global warming and the burning of fossil fuels, meaning that more heat from the sun is being absorbed by the ocean (because it is dark) instead of being reflected back into space. This leads to warming oceans, which in turn is also melting the ice caps, while ocean acidification is harming and killing marine life. This creates a feedback loop and further worsens global warming.
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© Day's Edge Productions / WWF-USTipping points
A tipping point is a threshold which, once passed, results in large, irreversible and self-perpetuating changes in the climate system. This will have abrupt and dangerous impacts on humanity and life on Earth.
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© Brent Stirton / Getty Images / WWF-UKOffshoring of greenhouse gases
Offshoring is a common challenge for holding emissions reduction targets accountable. Companies and countries often set emissions reduction targets that only include domestic emissions. This excludes emissions from imported goods, services, and international flights. By importing goods and services, emissions can be 'offshored' overseas, creating the illusion of reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
This is significant because many high-income countries rely on imports from lower-income countries. For example, while the UK has reduced domestic emissions in recent decades, around half of its related emissions occur outside its borders. [1]
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© Ian CylkowskiGreenwashing
Greenwashing, also called the "green sheen", is another accountability challenge. It involves organisations, companies or countries making false, exaggerated, or misleading claims about their environmental practices, products, or policies to appear more eco-friendly than they are.
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© Tommy Ga-Ken Wan / WWF-UKClimate Justice
Although climate change is a global crisis, its effects are not felt evenly around the world. The poorest, the Indigenous people (often important stewards of nature), and our future generations – those emitting the least greenhouse gases and the least responsible for the crisis – are often the most hard-hit by climate change.
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© Rick / FlickrThe Paris agreement
Adopted in 2015, the Paris Agreement is the world's most important international climate change treaty. It commits 195 signatory countries to limit warming to well below two degrees, preferably 1.5ºC, measured from pre-industrial levels to the year 2100.
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Find a full A-Z glossary on climate change here.
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© Bernd Lauter / Greenpeace -
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© Shutterstock / Rich Carey / WWF-Sweden
Discover more about commonly asked questions on climate change.
The impact of climate change
Since the Industrial Revolution, the planet has warmed by 1.2°C. We are already seeing the impacts of this warming in the news, with record breaking temperatures, heatwaves, floods, droughts and storms. Extreme weather events, once rare, are becoming increasingly common and are attributed to climate change caused by humans.
These extreme weather events endanger people’s lives and livelihoods, wildlife and nature. They are also more difficult and expensive to protect against and recover from. The longer we wait to act, the worse and more expensive it will become. A lot of the impacts are irreversible and self-perpetuating, so once they’ve started, they can’t stop.
While climate change is a global crisis, its effects are not felt evenly worldwide. The poorest, indigenous people (often important stewards of nature), and future generations – those least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions – are often the most affected by the climate crisis.
Countries have signed the Paris Agreement, agreeing to limit global warming to well below two degrees, preferably 1.5°C, from pre-industrial levels to the year 2100, to limit the very worst impacts of climate change. However, even if all governments acted on their current climate promises, we would still reach around 2.7°C of warming, and we are far from meeting those promises.
The impact of going beyond a 1.5°C global temperature increase:
The impact of going beyond a 1.5°C global temperature increase:
Warming beyond 1.5°C would propel the Earth beyond critical tipping points, causing irreversible damage with catastrophic consequences:
- Extreme ocean acidification would mean that most of the world’s coral reefs would be lost.
- Widespread extinction and species loss.
- More intense and extreme wildfires.
- Extreme storms and cyclones.
- Dying rainforests.
- Unthinkable loss of ancient ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, causing dramatic sea-level rises.
- Risks to food security, as higher temperatures lead to crop failures.
- Chronic water scarcity and more severe droughts.
- More heat-related deaths.
- Increased risk of pandemics.
- Increased risk of war due to competition over scarce resources.
- Mass displacement of people, known as climate refugees, as a result of homes being lost due to sea-level rise, food and water insecurity, or war.
- Increased pressure and risks to people’s mental health, as a result of witnessing the impacts of climate change and living through repeated extreme weather events.
Global solutions to climate change
While challenging, it is still possible to close the gap, but this requires urgent and strong actions worldwide, with the window of opportunity rapidly closing. Preventing every fraction of temperature rise could save lives and protect nature, meaning every action we take (or don't take) matters! To keep our planet within a relatively safe limit of 1.5°C temperature increase, many countries, including the UK, have set up a legally binding target to be net zero by 2050.
These actions include:
- Producing and using fewer polluting fossil fuels and transitioning to renewable energy, which is cleaner and cheaper.
- Planting more trees, restoring natural habitats, and protecting forests and oceans.
- Adopting sustainable farming practices.
- Improving energy efficiency and incorporating low-carbon technologies in buildings, transport and industry.
- Encouraging the adoption of electric vehicles and improving public transport.
- Promoting a circular economy that encourages recycling, buying second hand, reusing products and minimising waste.
- Investing in infrastructure in order to make them more resilient to the impacts of climate change, like sea-level rise and more intense storms.
- Increasing the amount of money spent on climate-friendly projects and investments, especially for supporting ecosystems and communities most threatened by the climate crisis.
- Strengthening net zero-aligned policy and regulation.
- Fostering international cooperation to work together to address the climate crisis, combining efforts to keep warming within the globally agreed limit of 1.5°C increase, such as through accelerating innovation in technological solutions and reducing emissions from international aviation and shipping.
- Encouraging sustainable choices in daily life, such as buying fewer unnecessary items, adopting plant-based diets and flying less.
How WWF-UK is helping
The good thing is that there is still a lot governments, businesses and people can do to speed up action and halt climate change. Find out how WW-UK is helping.
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© pexels Kelly LacyMore Working on policy
WWF are working with governments in England, Scotland and Wales to bring forward policies that will reduce the UK’s emissions and bring us in line with our national and international climate targets.
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© saulo-mohanaMore Working with businesses
We work in partnership with businesses to conduct research, foster innovation, create change and reduce their impact on the planet.
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© Dimitry AnikinMore Working with finance
We’re advocating for the greening of the global financial system, ensuring that it finances the global transition to a net zero and nature-positive economy, as well as encouraging nature-friendly farming and land use, both nationally and internationally.
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© Britta Jaschinski / WWF-UKMore Working on decarbonisation
This is in addition to our work on home decarbonisation, where we are actively looking at ways to reduce the carbon footprint of homes across the UK and address the cost-of-living crisis by bringing down our energy bills through energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies.
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Sources
[1] WWF-UK (2022) Carbon Footprint: Exploring the UK’s contribution to climate change. WWF-UK. https://www.wwf.org.uk/sites/default/files/2020-04/FINAL-WWF-UK_Carbon_Footprint_Analysis_Report_March_2020%20%28003%29.pdf
[2] Climate Action Tracker. The CAT Thermometer. https://climateactiontracker.org/global/cat-thermometer/
[3] Carbon Brief (2024) 'Every 0.1C’ of overshoot above 1.5C increases risk of crossing tipping points. https://www.carbonbrief.org/every-0-1c-of-overshoot-above-1-5c-increases-risk-of-crossing-tipping-points/
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