Our Climate (2024)

FAQs

Our Climate? ›

Rising temperatures are fueling environmental degradation, natural disasters, weather extremes, food and water insecurity, economic disruption, conflict, and terrorism. Sea levels are rising, the Arctic is melting, coral reefs are dying, oceans are acidifying, and forests are burning.

Rising temperatures are fueling environmental degradation, natural disasters, weather extremes, food and water insecurity, economic disruption, conflict, and terrorism. Sea levels are rising, the Arctic is melting, coral reefs are dying, oceans are acidifying, and forests are burning.

Global Temperature Is Rising

The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and other human activities.

These and other factors suggest that 2024 could see even more extreme weather and climate impacts than 2023, as humans continue to pour heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Human Activity Is the Cause of Increased Greenhouse Gas Concentrations. Over the last century, burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂).

Changing our main energy sources to clean and renewable energy is the best way to stop using fossil fuels. These include technologies like solar, wind, wave, tidal and geothermal power. Switch to sustainable transport. Petrol and diesel vehicles, planes and ships use fossil fuels.

How bad will climate be in 2030? ›

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that the world is likely to surpass its most ambitious climate target — limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures — by the early 2030s.

Ultimately, urbanization is inevitable in the midst of climate change – and could reach pique consequences by 2050. In fact, NASA has estimated that if the U.S. continues to emit greenhouse gas emissions at its current rate – we could tack on 1.5 degrees Celsius by the time we reach 2050.

Left unchecked, these impacts will spread and worsen, affecting our homes and cities, economies, food and water supplies as well as the species, ecosystems, and biodiversity of this planet we all call home.

According to NOAA's 2023 Annual Climate Report the combined land and ocean temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.11° Fahrenheit (0.06° Celsius) per decade since 1850, or about 2° F in total. The rate of warming since 1982 is more than three times as fast: 0.36° F (0.20° C) per decade.

Cut emissions

While climate change cannot be stopped, it can be slowed. To avoid the worst consequences of climate change, we'll need to reach “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050 or sooner. Net zero means that, on balance, no more carbon is dumped into the atmosphere than is taken out.

Fossil fuel firms clearly play a major role in the climate problem. A major report released in 2017 attributed 70% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions over the previous two decades to just 100 fossil fuel producers. An update last year outlined the top 20 fossil fuel firms behind a third of emissions.

Symptoms of climate change are all around us: extreme weather, diminishing sea ice, year after year of record-breaking warmth, drought, fires, and stress to ecosystems. Many of these consequences will create hardship for humans.

The main impacts are decreases in water availability and crop yields, increasing risks of droughts and biodiversity loss, forest fires, and heat waves.

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

Sea level rise, erosion, flooding, risks to infrastructure, and increasing ocean acidity pose major threats. Increasing wildfire incidence and severity, heat waves, insect outbreaks, and tree diseases are causing widespread forest die-off.