Causes of climate change

At the root of climate change is the phenomenon known as the greenhouse effect, the term
scientists use to describe the way that certain atmospheric gases “trap” heat that would
otherwise radiate upward, from the planet’s surface, into outer space. On the one hand, we have
the greenhouse effect to thank for the presence of life on earth; without it, our planet would be
cold and unlivable.

But beginning in the mid- to late-19th century, human activity began pushing the greenhouse
effect to new levels. The result? A planet that’s warmer right now than at any other point in
human history, and getting ever warmer. This global warming has, in turn, dramatically altered
natural cycles and weather patterns, with impacts that include extreme heat, protracted drought,
increased flooding, more intense storms, and rising sea levels. Taken together, these miserable
and sometimes deadly effects are what have come to be known as climate change.

Detailing and discussing the human causes of climate change isn’t about shaming people, or
trying to make them feel guilty for their choices. It’s about defining the problem so that we can
arrive at effective solutions. And we must honestly address its origins—even though it can
sometimes be difficult, or even uncomfortable, to do so. Human civilization has made
extraordinary productivity leaps, some of which have led to our currently overheated planet. But
by harnessing that same ability to innovate and attaching it to a renewed sense of shared
responsibility, we can find ways to cool the planet down, fight climate change, and chart a
course toward a more just, equitable, and sustainable future.

Here’s a rough breakdown of the factors that are driving climate change.

Natural causes of climate change

Some amount of climate change can be attributed to natural phenomena. Over the course of
Earth’s existence, volcanic eruptions, fluctuations in solar radiation, tectonic shifts, and even
small changes in our orbit have all had observable effects on planetary warming and cooling
patterns.

But climate records are able to show that today’s global warming—particularly what has
occured since the start of the industrial revolution—is happening much, much faster than ever
before. According to NASA, “these natural causes are still in play today, but their influence is
too small or they occur too slowly to explain the rapid warming seen in recent decades.” And
the records refute the misinformation that natural causes are the main culprits behind climate
change, as some in the fossil fuel industry and conservative think tanks would like us to believe.

Human-driven causes of climate change

Scientists agree that human activity is the primary driver of what we’re seeing now worldwide.
(This type of climate change is sometimes referred to as anthropogenic, which is just a way of
saying “caused by human beings.”) The unchecked burning of fossil fuels over the past 150
years has drastically increased the presence of atmospheric greenhouse gases, most
notably carbon dioxide. At the same time, logging and development have led to the widespread
destruction of forests, wetlands, and other carbon sinks—natural resources that store carbon
dioxide and prevent it from being released into the atmosphere.

Right now, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and
nitrous oxide are the highest they’ve been in the last 800,000 years. Some greenhouse gases,
like hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HFCs) , do not even exist in nature. By continuously pumping
these gases into the air, we helped raise the earth’s average temperature by about 1.9 degrees
Fahrenheit during the 20th century—which has brought us to our current era of deadly, and
increasingly routine, weather extremes. And it’s important to note that while climate change
affects everyone in some way, it doesn’t do so equally: All over the world, people of color and
those living in economically disadvantaged or politically marginalized communities bear a
much larger burden, despite the fact that these communities play a much smaller role in
warming the planet.

Our ways of generating power for electricity, heat, and transportation, our built environment
and industries, our ways of interacting with the land, and our consumption habits together serve
as the primary drivers of climate change. While the percentages of greenhouse gases stemming
from each source may fluctuate, the sources themselves remain relatively consistent.

Transportation

The cars, trucks, ships, and planes that we use to transport ourselves and our goods are a major
source of global greenhouse gas emissions. (In the United States, they actually constitute the
single-largest source.) Burning petroleum-based fuel in combustion engines releases massive
amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Passenger cars account for 41 percent of those
emissions, with the typical passenger vehicle emitting about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide
per year. And trucks are by far the worst polluters on the road. They run almost constantly and
largely burn diesel fuel, which is why, despite accounting for just 4 percent of U.S.
vehicles, trucks emit 23 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.

We can get these numbers down, but we need large-scale investments to get more zero-emission
vehicles on the road and increase access to reliable public transit .

Agriculture

The advent of modern, industrialized agriculture has significantly altered the vital but delicate
relationship between soil and the climate—so much so that agriculture accounted for 11 percent
of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2020. This sector is especially notorious for giving off
large amounts of nitrous oxide and methane, powerful gases that are highly effective at trapping
heat. The widespread adoption of chemical fertilizers, combined with certain crop-management
practices that prioritize high yields over soil health, means that agriculture accounts for nearly
three-quarters of the nitrous oxide found in our atmosphere. Meanwhile, large-scale
industrialized livestock production continues to be a significant source of atmospheric methane,
which is emitted as a function of the digestive processes of cattle and other ruminants.
But farmers and ranchers—especially Indigenous farmers, who have been tending the
land according to sustainable principles—are reminding us that there’s more than one way to
feed the world. By adopting the philosophies and methods associated with regenerative
agriculture, we can slash emissions from this sector while boosting our soil’s capacity for
sequestering carbon from the atmosphere, and producing healthier foods.

Deforestation

Another way we’re injecting more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere is through
the clearcutting of the world’s forests and the degradation of its wetlands . Vegetation and soil
store carbon by keeping it at ground level or underground. Through logging and other forms of
development, we’re cutting down or digging up vegetative biomass and releasing all of its
stored carbon into the air. In Canada’s boreal forest alone, clearcutting is responsible for
releasing more than 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year—
the emissions equivalent of 5.5 million vehicles.

Government policies that emphasize sustainable practices, combined with shifts in consumer
behavior, are needed to offset this dynamic and restore the planet’s carbon sinks.

Our lifestyle choices

The decisions we make every day as individuals—which products we purchase, how much
electricity we consume, how we get around, what we eat (and what we don’t—food waste
makes up 4 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions)—add up to our single,
unique carbon footprints. Put all of them together and you end up with humanity’s collective
carbon footprint. The first step in reducing it is for us to acknowledge the uneven distribution of
climate change’s causes and effects, and for those who bear the greatest responsibility for global
greenhouse gas emissions to slash them without bringing further harm to those who are least
responsible.

The big, climate-affecting decisions made by utilities, industries, and governments are shaped,
in the end, by us: our needs, our demands, our priorities. Winning the fight against climate
change will require us to rethink those needs, ramp up those demands , and reset those priorities.
Short-term thinking of the sort that enriches corporations must give way to long-term planning
that strengthens communities and secures the health and safety of all people. And our definition
of climate advocacy must go beyond slogans and move, swiftly, into the realm of collective
action—fueled by righteous anger, perhaps, but guided by faith in science and in our ability to
change the world for the better.

If our activity has brought us to this dangerous point in human history, breaking old patterns can
help us find a way out.

Climate change is our planet’s greatest existential threat. If we don’t limit greenhouse gas
emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, the consequences of rising global temperatures
include massive crop and fishery collapse, the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of
species, and entire communities becoming uninhabitable. While these outcomes may still be
avoidable, climate change is already causing suffering and death. From raging wildfires and
supercharged storms, its compounding effects can be felt today, outside our own windows.

Understanding these impacts can help us prepare for what’s here, what’s avoidable, and what’s
yet to come, and to better prepare and protect all communities. Even though everyone is or will
be affected by climate change, those living in the world’s poorest countries—which
have contributed least to the problem—are the most climate-vulnerable. They have the fewest
financial resources to respond to crises or adapt, and they’re closely dependent on a healthy,
thriving natural world for food and income. Similarly, in the United States, it is most often low-
income communities and communities of color that are on the frontlines of climate impacts.
And because climate change and rising inequality are interconnected crises, decision makers
must take action to combat both—and all of us must fight for climate justice. Here’s what you
need to know about what we’re up against.

Effects of climate change on weather

As global temperatures climb, widespread shifts in weather systems occur, making events
like droughts, hurricanes, and floods more intense and unpredictable. Extreme weather events
that may have hit just once in our grandparents’ lifetimes are becoming more common in ours.
However, not every place will experience the same effects: Climate change may cause severe
drought in one region while making floods more likely in another.

Already, the planet has warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.9 degrees Fahrenheit) since the
preindustrial era began 250 years ago, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC). And scientists warn it could reach a worst-case scenario of 4 degrees Celsius
(7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 if we fail to tackle the causes of climate change —namely, the
burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) .

Higher average temperatures

This change in global average temperature—seemingly small but consequential and climbing—
means that, each summer, we are likely to experience increasingly sweltering heat waves. Even
local news meteorologists are starting to connect strings of record-breaking days to new long-
term trends, which are especially problematic in regions where infrastructure and housing have
not been built with intensifying heat in mind. And heat waves aren’t just uncomfortable—
they’re the leading cause of weather-related fatalities in the United States.

Longer-lasting droughts

Hotter temperatures increase the rate at which water evaporates from the air, leading to more
severe and pervasive droughts. Already, climate change has pushed the American West into a
severe “megadrought”—the driest 22-year stretch recorded in at least 1,200 years—shrinking
drinking water supplies, withering crops, and making forests more susceptible to insect
infestations. Drought can also create a positive feedback loop in which drier soil and less plant
cover cause even faster evaporation.
More intense wildfires

This drier, hotter climate also creates conditions that fuel more vicious wildfire seasons—with
fires that spread faster and burn longer—putting millions of additional lives and homes at risk.
The number of large wildfires doubled between 1984 and 2015 in the western United States.
And in California alone, the annual area burned by wildfires increased 500 percent between
1972 and 2018.

2024 Sees Highest Number of Fires in 20 Years. In a troubling trend, the Amazon
registered a 43.2% increase in fire hotspots during the same seven month period
(January – July) from 2023 to 2024. According to Brazil's National Institute for Space
Research (INPE).

Stronger storms

Warmer air also holds more moisture, making tropical cyclones wetter, stronger, and more
capable of rapidly intensifying. In the latest report from the IPCC , scientists found that daily
rainfall during extreme precipitation events would increase by about 7 percent for each degree
Celsius of global warming, increasing the dangers of flooding. The frequency of severe
Category 4 and 5 hurricanes is also expected to increase. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey, a
devastating Category 4 storm, dumped a record 275 trillion pounds of rain and resulted in
dozens of deaths in the Houston area.

Effects of climate change on the environment

From the poles to the tropics, climate change is disrupting ecosystems. Even a seemingly slight
shift in temperature can cause dramatic changes that ripple through food webs and the
environment.

Melting sea ice

The effects of climate change are most apparent in the world’s coldest regions—the poles. The
Arctic is heating up twice as fast as anywhere else on earth, leading to the rapid melting of
glaciers and polar ice sheets, where a massive amount of water is stored. As sea ice melts,
darker ocean waters that absorb more sunlight become exposed, creating a positive feedback
loop that speeds up the melting process. In just 15 years, the Arctic could be entirely ice-free in
the summer.

Sea level rise

Scientists predict that melting sea ice and glaciers, as well as the fact that warmer water expands
in volume, could cause sea levels to rise as much as 6.6 feet by the end of the century, should
we fail to curb emissions. The extent (and pace) of this change would devastate low-lying
regions, including island nations and densely populated coastal cities like New York City and
Mumbai.
But sea level rise at far lower levels is still costly, dangerous, and disruptive. According to the
2022 Sea Level Rise Technical Report from the National Ocean Service, the United States will
see a foot of sea level rise by 2050, which will regularly damage infrastructure, like roads,
sewage treatment plants, and even power plants. Beaches that families have grown up visiting
may be gone by the end of the century. Sea level rise also harms the environment, as
encroaching seawater can both erode coastal ecosystems and invade freshwater inland aquifers,
which we rely on for agriculture and drinking water. Saltwater incursion is already reshaping
life in nations like Bangladesh, where one-quarter of the lands lie less than 7 feet above sea
level.

Flooding

In addition to coastal flooding caused by sea level rise, climate change influences the factors
that result in inland and urban flooding: snowmelt and heavy rain. As global warming continues
to both exacerbate sea level rise and extreme weather, our nation’s floodplains are expected to
grow by approximately 45 percent by 2100. In 2022, deadly flooding in Pakistan—which
inundated as much as a third of the country—resulted from torrential rains mixed with melting
glaciers and snow.

Warmer ocean waters and marine heat waves

Oceans are taking the brunt of our climate crisis. Covering more than 70 percent of the planet’s
surface, oceans absorb 93 percent of all the heat that’s trapped by greenhouse gases and up to 30
percent of all the carbon dioxide emitted from burning fossil fuels.

Temperature-sensitive fish and other marine life are already changing migration patterns toward
cooler and deeper waters to survive, sending food webs and important commercial fisheries into
disarray. And the frequency of marine heat waves has increased by more than a third. These
spikes have led to mass die-offs of plankton and marine mammals.

To make matters worse, the elevated absorption of carbon dioxide by the ocean leads to
its gradual acidification, which alters the fundamental chemical makeup of the water and
threatens marine life that has evolved to live in a narrow pH band. Animals like corals, oysters,
and mussels will likely feel these effects first, as acidification disrupts the calcification process
required to build their shells.

Ecosystem stressors

Land-based ecosystems—from old-growth forests to savannahs to tropical rainforests—are

faring no better. Climate change is likely to increase outbreaks of pests, invasive species, and
pathogen infections in forests. It’s changing the kinds of vegetation that can thrive in a given
region and disrupting the life cycles of wildlife, all of which is changing the composition of
ecosystems and making them less resilient to stressors. While ecosystems have the capacity to
adapt, many are reaching the hard limits of that natural capacity . More repercussions will follow
as temperatures rise.
Climate change appears to be triggering a series of cascading ecological changes that we can
neither fully predict nor, once they have enough momentum, fully stop. This ecosystem
destabilization may be most apparent when it comes to keystone species that have an outsize-
role in holding up an ecosystem’s structure.

Effects of climate change on agriculture

Less predictable growing seasons

In a warming world, farming crops is more unpredictable—and livestock, which are sensitive to
extreme weather, become harder to raise. Climate change shifts precipitation patterns, causing
unpredictable floods and longer-lasting droughts. More frequent and severe hurricanes can
devastate an entire season’s worth of crops. Meanwhile, the dynamics of pests, pathogens, and
invasive species—all of which are costly for farmers to manage—are also expected to become
harder to predict. This is bad news, given that most of the world’s farms are small and family-
run. One bad drought or flood could decimate an entire season’s crop or herd. For example, in
June 2022, a triple-digit heat wave in Kansas wiped out thousands of cows. While
the regenerative agriculture movement is empowering rural communities to make their lands
more resilient to climate change, unfortunately, not all communities can equitably access the
support services that can help them embrace these more sustainable farming tactics.

Reduced soil health

Healthy soil has good moisture and mineral content and is teeming with bugs, bacteria, fungi,
and microbes that in turn contribute to healthy crops. But climate change, particularly extreme
heat and changes in precipitation, can degrade soil quality. These impacts are exacerbated in
areas where industrial, chemical-dependent monoculture farming has made soil and crops less
able to withstand environmental changes.

Food shortages

Ultimately, impacts to our agricultural systems pose a direct threat to the global food supply.
Food shortages and price hikes driven by climate change will not affect everyone equally:
Wealthier people will continue to have more options for accessing food, while potentially
billions of others will be plummeted into food insecurity—adding to the billions that already
have moderate or severe difficulty getting enough to eat.

Effects of climate change on animals

It’s about far more than just the polar bears: Half of all animal species in the world’s
most biodiverse places, like the Amazon rainforest and the Galapagos Islands, are at risk of
extinction from climate change. And climate change is threatening species that are already
suffering from the biodiversity crisis, which is driven primarily by changes in land and ocean
use (like converting wild places to farmland) and direct exploitation of species (like overfishing
and wildlife trade). With species already in rough shape—more than 500,000 species have
insufficient habitat for long-term survival—unchecked climate change is poised to push
millions over the edge.

Climate change rapidly and fundamentally alters (or in some cases, destroys) the habitat that
wildlife have incrementally adapted to over millennia. This is especially harmful for species’
habitats that are currently under threat from other causes. Ice-dependent mammals like walruses
and penguins, for example, won’t fare well as ice sheets shrink. Rapid shifts in ocean
temperatures stress the algae that nourishes coral reefs, causing reefs to starve—an increasingly
common phenomenon known as coral bleaching. Disappearing wetlands in the Midwest’s
Prairie Pothole Region means the loss of watering holes and breeding grounds for millions of
migratory birds. (Many species are now struggling to survive, as more than 85 percent of
wetlands have been lost since 1700). And sea level rise will inundate or erode away many
coastal habitats, where hundreds of species of birds, invertebrates, and other marine species
live.

Many species’ behaviors—mating, feeding, migration—are closely tied to subtle seasonal

shifts, as in temperature, precipitation level, and foliage. In some cases, changes to the
environment are happening quicker than species are able to adapt. When the types and quantity
of plant life change across a region, or when certain species bloom or hatch earlier or later than
in the past, it impacts food and water supplies and reverberates up food chains.

Effects of climate change on humans

Ultimately, the way climate change impacts weather, the environment, animals, and agriculture
affects humanity as well. But there’s more. Around the world, our ways of life—from how we
get our food to the industries around which our economies are based—have all developed in the
context of relatively stable climates. As global warming shakes this foundation, it promises to
alter the very fabric of society. At worst, this could lead to widespread famine, disease,
war, displacement, injury, and death. For many around the world, this grim forecast is already
their reality. In this way, climate change poses an existential threat to all human life.

Human health

Climate change worsens air quality. It increases exposure to hazardous wildfire smoke and
ozone smog triggered by warmer conditions, both of which harm our health, particularly for
those with pre-existing illnesses like asthma or heart disease.

Insect-borne diseases like malaria and Zika become more prevalent in a warming world as their
carriers are able to exist in more regions or thrive for longer seasons. In the past 30 years, the
incidence of Lyme disease from ticks has nearly doubled in the United States, according to the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Thousands of people face injury, illness, and
death every year from more frequent or more intense extreme weather events. At a 2-degree
Celsius rise in global average temperature, an estimated one billion people will face heat stress
risk. In the summer of 2022 alone, thousands died in record-shattering heat waves across
Europe. Weeks later, dozens were killed by record-breaking urban flooding in the United States
and South Korea—and more than 1,500 people perished in the flooding in Pakistan, where
resulting stagnant water and unsanitary conditions threaten even more.

The effects of climate change—and the looming threat of what’s yet to come—take a significant
toll on mental health too. One 2021 study on climate anxiety, published in the journal Nature,
surveyed 10,000 young people from 10 different countries. Forty-five percent of respondents
said that their feelings about climate change, varying from anxiety to powerlessness to anger,
impacted their daily lives.

Worsening inequity

The climate crisis exacerbates existing inequities. Though wealthy nations, such as the United
States, have emitted the lion’s share of historical greenhouse gas emissions, it’s developing
countries that may lack the resources to adapt and will now bear the brunt of the climate crisis.
In some cases, low-lying island nations—like many in the Pacific—may cease to exist before
developed economies make meaningful reductions to their carbon emissions.

Even within wealthier nations, disparities will continue to grow between those rich enough to
shield themselves from the realities of climate change and those who cannot. Those with ample
resources will not be displaced from their homes by wars over food or water—at least not right
away. They will have homes with cool air during heat waves and be able to easily evacuate
when a hurricane is headed their way. They will be able to buy increasingly expensive food and
access treatment for respiratory illness caused by wildfire smoke. Billions of others can’t—and
are paying the highest price for climate pollution they did not produce.

Hurricane Katrina, for example, displaced more than one million people around the Gulf Coast.
But in New Orleans, where redlining practices promoted racial and economic segregation, the
city’s more affluent areas tended to be located on higher ground—and those residents were able
to return and rebuild much faster than others.

Displacement

Climate change will drive displacement due to impacts like food and water scarcities, sea level
rise, and economic instability. It’s already happening. The United Nations Global Compact on
Refugees recognizes that “climate, environmental degradation and disasters increasingly
interact with the drivers of refugee movements.” Again, communities with the fewest resources
—including those facing political instability and poverty—will feel the effects first and most
devastatingly.

Economic impacts

According to the 2018 National Climate Assessment, unless action is taken, climate change
will cost the U.S. economy as much as $500 billion per year by the end of the century. And that
doesn’t even include its enormous impacts on human health . Entire local industries—from
commercial fishing to tourism to husbandry—are at risk of collapsing, along with the economic
support they provide.
Recovering from the destruction wrought by extreme weather like hurricanes, flash floods, and
wildfires is also getting more expensive every year. In 2021, the price tag of weather disasters
in the United States totaled $145 billion—the third-costliest year on record, including a number
of billion-dollar weather events.

Future effects of climate change

The first wave of impacts can already be felt in our communities and seen on the nightly news.
The World Health Organization says that in the near future, between 2030 and 2050, climate
change is expected to cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year from things like malnutrition,
insect-borne diseases, and heat stress. And the World Bank estimates that climate change could
displace more than 140 million people within their home countries in sub-Saharan Africa, South
Asia, and Latin America by 2050.

But the degree to which the climate crisis upends our lives depends on whether global leaders
decide to chart a different course. If we fail to curb greenhouse gas emissions, scientists predict
a catastrophic 4.3 degrees Celsius , (or around 8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming by the end of
the century. What would a world that warm look like? Wars over water. Crowded hospitals to
contend with spreading disease. Collapsed fisheries. Dead coral reefs. Even more lethal heat
waves. These are just some of the impacts predicted by climate scientists.

Climate mitigation, or our ability to reverse climate change and undo its widespread effects,
hinges on the successful enactment of policies that yield deep cuts to carbon pollution, end our
dependence on dangerous fossil fuels and the deadly air pollution they generate, and prioritize
the people and ecosystems on the frontlines. And these actions must be taken quickly in order to
ensure a healthier present day and future. In one of its latest reports, the IPCC presented its most
optimistic emissions scenario, in which the world only briefly surpasses 1.5 degrees of warming
but sequestration measures cause it to dip back below by 2100. Climate adaptation, a term that
refers to coping with climate impacts, is no longer optional; it’s necessary, particularly for the
world’s most vulnerable populations.

By following the urgent warnings of the IPCC and limiting warming, we may be able to avoid
passing some of the critical thresholds that, once crossed, can lead to potentially irreversible,
catastrophic impacts for the planet, including more warming. These thresholds are known
as climate tipping points and refer to when a natural system "tips" into an entirely different
state. One example would be Arctic permafrost, which stores carbon like a freezer: As the
permafrost melts from warming temperatures, it releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Importantly, climate action is not a binary pass-fail test. Every fraction of a degree of warming
that we prevent will reduce human suffering and death, and keep more of the planet’s natural
systems intact. The good news is that a wide range of solutions exist to sharply reduce
emissions, slow the pace of warming, and protect communities on the frontlines of climate
impacts. Climate leaders the world over—those on major political stages as well as grassroots
community activists—are offering up alternative models to systems that prioritize polluters over
people. Many of these solutions are rooted in ancestral and Indigenous understandings of the
natural world and have existed for millennia. Some solutions require major investments into
clean, renewable energy and sustainable technologies. To be successful, climate solutions must
also address intersecting crises—like poverty, racism, and gender inequality—that compound
and drive the causes and impacts of the climate crisis. A combination of human ingenuity and
immense political will can help us get there.

Reports

 Research by WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO) shows that 3.6 billion

people already live in areas highly susceptible to climate change. Between 2030 and
2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per
year, from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress alone.
 The direct damage costs to health (excluding costs in health-determining sectors such as
agriculture and water and sanitation) is estimated to be between US$ 2–4 billion per year
by 2030.

WHO response

WHO’s response to these challenges centres around 3 main objectives:

 Promote actions that both reduce carbon emissions and improve health: supporting a
rapid and equitable transition to a clean energy economy; ensuring that health is central to
climate change mitigation policy; accelerating mitigation actions that bring the greatest
health gains; and mobilizing the strength of the health community to drive policy change
and build public support.
 Build better, more climate-resilient and environmentally sustainable health
systems: ensuring core services, environmental sustainability and climate resilience as
central components of UHC and primary health care (PHC); supporting health systems to
leapfrog to cheaper, more reliable and cleaner solutions, while decarbonizing high-
emitting health systems; and mainstreaming climate resilience and environmental
sustainability into health service investments, including the capacity of the health
workforce.
 Protect health from the wide range of impacts of climate change: assessing health
vulnerabilities and developing health plans; integrating climate risk and implementing
climate-informed surveillance and response systems for key risks, such as extreme heat
and infectious disease; supporting resilience and adaptation in health-determining sectors
such as water and food; and closing the financing gap for health adaptation and
resilience.

Leadership and Raising Awareness: WHO leads in emphasizing climate change's health
implications, aiming to centralize health in climate policies, including through the UNFCCC.
Partnering with major health agencies, health professionals and civil society, WHO strives to
embed climate change in health priorities like UHC and target carbon neutrality by 2030.

Evidence and Monitoring: WHO, with its network of global experts, contributes global
evidence summaries, provides assistance to nations in their assessments, and monitors progress.
The emphasis is on deploying effective policies and enhancing access to knowledge and data.
Capacity Building and Country Support: Through WHO offices, support is given to ministries
of health, focusing on collaboration across sectors, updated guidance, hands-on training, and
support for project preparation and execution as well as for securing climate and health funding.
WHO leads the Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health (ATACH), bringing
together a range of health and development partners, to support countries in achieving their
commitments to climate-resilient and low carbon health systems.

June 2024

June 2024 was the warmest June on record for the globe in NOAA's 175-year record. The June
global surface temperature was 1.22°C (2.20°F) above the 20th-century average of 15.5°C
(59.9°F). This is 0.15°C (0.27°F) warmer than the previous June record set last year, and the 13th
consecutive month of record-high global temperatures. This ties with May 2015-May 2016 for
the longest record warm global temperature streak in the modern record (since 1980). June 2024
marked the 48th consecutive June with global temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-
century average.

Global land-only June temperature also was warmest on record at 1.75°C (3.15°F) above
average. The ocean-only temperature also ranked warmest on record for June at 0.98°C (1.76°F)
above average, 0.05°C (0.09°F) warmer than the previous record warm June last year, and the
15th-consecutive monthly ocean record high. These record temperatures occurred under ENSO-
neutral conditions. According to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, ENSO-neutral conditions
are present and La Niña is favored to develop during July-September (65% chance) and persist
into the Northern Hemisphere winter 2024-25 (85% chance during November-January).

Record-warm June temperatures covered large parts of Africa, parts of southern Europe,
Southeast Asia, and much of the northern two-thirds of South America. Anomalous warmth also
covered large parts of North America, with the exception of central and western Canada. During
June 2024, 14.5% of the world's surface had a record-high June temperature, exceeding the
previous June record set in 2023 by 7.4%. Across the global land, 13.8% of its surface had a
record-high June temperature. Meanwhile, 0.3% of the global land and ocean surface
experienced a record-cold June temperature.