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Climate change


 

What is Climate Change?

Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns on Earth. Such shifts can be natural, due to changes in the sun’s activity or large volcanic eruptions. However, in common usage currently, climate change tends to refer to the ongoing increase in global average temperature (also referred to as Global Warming) —and its effects on Earth’s climate system.

The current rise in global average temperature is primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels, like coal, oil and gas, since the Industrial Revolution. Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices add to greenhouse gases, that act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures.

What is Anthropogenic Climate Change?

The term climate change is often used as shorthand to refer to the current rise in global average temperatures, for which climate scientists have determined that humans are responsible; at least over the last 200 years or so.

The term ‘anthropogenic climate change’ is defined by the human impact on Earth’s climate, while ‘natural climate change’ is seen as referring to the natural climate cycles that have and continue to occur throughout Earth’s longer history.

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

What does Climate Change mean for us and the world?

Climate change threatens our food and water security, increases the occurrence of extreme weather events and resulting disasters, intensifies conflict around resources such as land, food, and water, and triggers humanitarian crises across the world.

In the face of these escalating impacts, climate crisis (or climate emergency) has become a widely used term to emphasise the urgency and inevitability of climate change and to call for bold and collective action to halt and reverse its impacts.

The effects of climate change (or climate crisis) are already being felt all around the world, and these effects tend to be experienced disproportionately by the people who have contributed to it the least; the world’s poorest people are bearing the brunt of climate catastrophes.

These communities are facing effects like increased and intense climate shocks such as floods and drought, rising sea levels due to polar ice melt, heightened temperatures, loss of nature and biodiversity, degradation of soil quality, and more limited availability of fresh water. Families are dealing with these impacts and more, on top of poverty. This is why Practical Action is focused on working with those at the front lines of climate change, to better help people adapt to these effects so that they can protect their homes, livelihoods and ways of life.