Climate Change Facts

416 parts per million 1

The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2)  in our atmosphere, is the highest it has been in human history.

2020 was a scorcher

Analysis by NOAA shows that average global temperatures in 2020 were 1.76 degrees F (0.98 degrees C) warmer than the 20th-century average — making it the second-hottest year on record. In fact, the seven warmest years in the 1880-2020 record have all occurred since 2014.

11% of emissions

Eleven percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans are due to deforestation — comparable to the emissions from all of the passenger vehicles on the planet.

Nature is an untapped solution

Tropical forests are incredibly effective at storing carbon, providing at least a third of the mitigation action needed to prevent the worst climate change scenarios. Yet nature-based solutions receive only 3% of all climate funding. One of the solutions proposed by Californians for Climate Change is creating kelp forests off the coast of California. California kelp farms could greatly impact pulling carbon out of the atmosphere as well as feed people in need of food.

Coastal ‘blue carbon’ ecosystems are critical

Just 0.7% of the world’s forests are coastal mangroves, yet they store up to 10 times as much carbon per hectare as tropical forests.

800,000 hectares lost every year

If we continue to lose mangroves at this rate, they may disappear within the next century. This loss removes an important buffer from extreme weather for coastal communities and releases immense amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Fight climate change, improve livelihoods — naturally

Natural climate solutions such as restoring degraded forests could create as many as 39 jobs per million dollars spent — that's a job-creation rate more than six times higher than the oil and gas industry.

Price tag: US$140 billion per year

This is what it would take to make the changes humanity needs to adapt to a warming world. It may sound like a lot, but it’s less than 0.2% of global GDP. And the cost will only increase the longer we take to act ambitiously.

July 2021 was the hottest month ever recorded

According to NOAA, global temperatures in July 2021 were higher than any other July on record — making it likely the hottest month the world has seen since records began in 1880.

800 million people

Eleven percent of the world’s population is currently vulnerable to climate change impacts such as droughts, floods, heatwaves, extreme weather events, and sea-level rise.

Save nature. It’s cheaper

Conserving ecosystems is often more cost-effective than human-made interventions. In the Maldives, preserving the natural coral reef is four times cheaper than building a sea wall for coastal protection, even after 10 years of maintenance costs.

189 nations on board

189 countries have ratified the 2015 Paris Agreement, agreeing to limit global warming and adapt to climate change, partly by protecting nature.

Average wildlife populations have dropped by 60 percent in just over 40 years

The average size of vertebrate (mammals, fish, birds, and reptiles) populations declined by 60 percent between 1970 and 2014, according to the biennial Living Planet Report published by the Zoological Society of London and the WWF.

Sea levels are rising faster today than ever before

Melting ice sheets and glaciers, and warming oceans lead to higher sea levels. Since 1900, sea levels have risen faster than in any preceding century in at least the last 3,000 years and this is set to continue for a very long time.