We should care about climate change because its costs are already being measured, not forecast. 2024 was the warmest year in the 146-year instrumental record and the first calendar year more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the 1850–1900 average. The ten warmest years on record are the ten most recent. Below are seven impacts — sea level, food and water, disease, fire, habitat, heat and air quality — with the figures behind each one.
The alarming rate of climate change has put the future of our planet on the line. The natural system and the various organisms living there, including us, struggle to adapt to these substantial changes.
It’s, therefore, incumbent on the current generation to start taking action now while there is still time to limit the irreversible impact of climate change.
And although the climate crisis may feel abstract to some or appear like a problem for future generations to tackle, the effects are already with us. The things we care about, such as the people we love, material possessions, and even our lives, are at risk.
If this situation is not mitigated, it will have a direct negative impact on the quality of our lives. It will adversely affect the things we enjoy and have taken for granted.
This leads to our fundamental question: why should we care about climate change?
How Climate Change Works, in Plain English
Burning coal, oil and gas releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases let sunlight through but absorb the heat the Earth’s surface radiates back, so the lower atmosphere warms. That is the whole mechanism, and it has been understood since the nineteenth century.
What has changed is the dose. NOAA measured a global average carbon dioxide concentration of 422.8 parts per million in 2024 — a record — and the 3.75 ppm jump over 2023 was the largest single-year increase in the record. In May 2025 the seasonal peak at Mauna Loa Observatory passed 430 ppm for the first time. Every impact described below follows from that one number rising.
This also explains why the fixes are what they are. Because the driver is fossil fuel combustion, the lever that matters most is replacing it — which is why renewable energy build-out and where emissions are concentrated dominate the policy argument.
Has the 1.5 °C Limit Already Been Passed?
Not in the sense the Paris Agreement means. The World Meteorological Organization confirmed 2024 at about 1.55 °C (±0.13 °C) above the 1850–1900 average, making it the first calendar year over the threshold. But the WMO is explicit that the Paris limit refers to a long-term average, typically measured over twenty years or more — so a single year above 1.5 °C, boosted here by the 2023–24 El Niño, does not by itself mean the target has been missed. It does mean the margin is gone.
7 Reasons to Care About Climate Change
Here are a few reasons why we should care about climate change:
1. Sea-Level Rise
Climate change has driven a rise in global temperatures. As a result, ice in the Arctic, Greenland, Antarctica and on mountain tops is melting and draining into the oceans, and warmer seawater expands as it heats. Together these raise sea level, putting coastal cities and towns at greater risk of flooding.
Recently, coastal cities worldwide in Japan, the US, Indonesia, and the Caribbean Islands have seen devastating floods and storm surges.
And with a significant world population living at or near the coast, many people and property stare at a bleak future. The cost of flooding coastal cities is extraordinarily high regarding the lives lost and the subsequent financial losses. Remember, this problem will be experienced worldwide as the oceans are interconnected in one way or another.
Rising sea levels also mean that water will start encroaching on land already occupied by people. This will force people to relocate and increase pressure on the already overused landmass.
A 2016 study in Environmental Research Letters documented five vegetated reef islands in the Solomon Islands disappearing entirely, with shoreline recession on several others — the clearest published case of inhabited land lost to a combination of sea-level rise and wave energy. Two years later, East Island in Hawaii’s French Frigate Shoals was erased by Hurricane Walaka. That second case is worth stating precisely: a storm destroyed it, not sea level. Rising seas matter here because they raise the baseline every storm surge builds on.
The underlying trend is not subtle. On NASA’s record, the ten warmest years measured are the ten most recent, and 2024 sits at the top at 1.28 °C above the 1951–1980 baseline. September Arctic sea ice is shrinking by 12.2% per decade against the 1981–2010 average; since satellite records began in 1979, the September minimum has lost 1.61 million square kilometres of ice — roughly the area of Alaska.
In addition, the frequency of floods is projected to increase worldwide, which will affect millions of people and lead to billions of dollars in losses. This is a call for worry and one of the main reasons we should care about climate change.
2. Food and Water Scarcity
The climate pattern is critical because it dictates where farming can occur. So when climate change occurs, it affects farming activity and productivity, posing a big threat to food security.
A recent study showed that if the current trend continues, there will be a significant reduction in agricultural productivity soon. And with dwindling agricultural productivity and the increase in population, there are bound to be food shortages across the globe.
The production of crops that are very sensitive to temperature changes is already reducing due to global warming. For example, there is a substantial decrease in barley production. Higher temperatures and lack of water have also contributed to changes in the quality of some grape varieties.
There is also a high likelihood of coffee shortages because climate change has caused the reduction of the area suitable for its production. Weather changes have also led to increased pest attacks, as seen during the locust invasion early this year in some parts of the world.
As if that’s not enough, climate change significantly affects water availability. This is often reported as a forecast, but it no longer is one: UN-Water puts the number of people who already experience severe water scarcity for at least one month every year at about 4 billion — close to two-thirds of the world’s population. A separate FAO projection, widely quoted for years, put 1.8 billion people in areas of absolute water scarcity by 2025; that date has now arrived, which is precisely why the measured figure is the one to cite.
The rise in global temperatures destabilizes the water cycle and also makes drought and flooding more prevalent.
3. Occurrence and Spread of Diseases
The climate also plays a major role in the occurrence and spread of diseases. Climate changes and precipitation patterns, for example, are a major cause of deadly insect-borne diseases.
As global temperatures rise, disease-causing insects such as mosquitoes spread beyond their current habitats. And they lead to the spread of malaria, dengue fever, Zika, and the West Nile virus, among other diseases.
Climate-sensitive diseases will continue to worsen with the prevalence of extreme climatic and weather events. Studies indicate that the risk of contracting malaria was five times higher the year after the occurrence of El Nino. Some scientists also attribute Ebola outbreaks to climate change.
The increase in unexpected and extreme weather events, such as dry seasons followed by heavy rainfalls, has always coincided with the outbreak of Ebola.
This is because these weather events create many opportunities for animals and human beings to interact and compete for the same resources. That contact is how animal diseases jump between species and reach people.
The United States Agency for International Development published a study that established that around 75 percent of new or re-emerging human diseases since the turn of the 21st century have come from animals. These diseases include the avian flu, SARS, and H1N1 flu.
This means humans are increasingly coming into close contact with wildlife that can carry pathogens capable of crossing into people — which is why the pressure being put on wild populations and their habitat is a public-health question as much as a conservation one.
See Related: How Climate Change Is Affecting Animals
4. Drought and Forest Fires
Scientists have warned that the rise in temperatures because of climate change is behind the surge in wildfires and drought.
And the fires are becoming worse. The prevalence of wildfires has tripled, and the wildfires are taking three months longer than they would, a few years back. This results in the destruction of two times larger areas than in previous years.
And even though some of these fires are blamed on human carelessness, the rise in temperatures has caused an increase in evaporation, making the ground and vegetation in forests drier. That is why forests today burn easily and faster than ever before.
As the moisture from the ground evaporates, the soil and vegetation dry up, making vegetation more susceptible to wildfires. The water and snowpacks in forests also dry more quickly, meaning that forest vegetation stays dry for longer.
The changing precipitation patterns also drive rain away from areas susceptible to wildfires, such as Australia, the Amazon, and California.
The surge of these wildfires leaves the local populations devastated, and we expect the human, material, and financial impact to increase. That’s especially if nothing is done about the situation. An example is the impact of wildfires on the koala population.
See Related: Ways Climate Change is Affecting Animals
5. Loss of Habitats, Coral Reefs and Ecosystems
The loss of suitable habitat is closely tied to climate change. As habitat is degraded or shifts out from under them, animal populations — from the Malayan tiger to species that depend on stable seasonal cues — decline, and some cannot move fast enough to follow the conditions they need.
Climate change has also made it difficult for animals to obtain food and pushed humans into animal territories.
From forests to arctic areas, rivers, and lakes, tremendous changes have affected the ability of animals to survive in these environments. For example, climate change in the Arctic has led to the melting of mountains and sea ice.
Sea ice is the platform polar bears hunt seals from, so losing it means losing access to food. Studies coordinated by the US Geological Survey, and later modelling by Amstrup and colleagues in 2010, project that continued sea-ice loss would cut the global population of polar bears by roughly two-thirds — to fewer than 10,000 animals — by 2050.
The Great Barrier Reef is another marine habitat under direct threat. Located off Australia, it is the world’s largest coral reef system and holds more than 400 species of coral. Rising sea temperatures and increasing ocean acidity are degrading it — and, unusually for a climate impact, the damage has now been surveyed rather than projected.
The Australian Institute of Marine Science’s 2024/25 annual survey recorded the largest annual falls in hard coral cover in the programme’s history, following back-to-back mass bleaching in 2024 and 2025. Coral cover dropped 24.8% on the northern reef (39.8% to 30.0%), 13.9% on the central reef (33.2% to 28.6%) and 30.6% on the southern reef (38.9% to 26.9%), with losses on the worst-hit individual reefs reaching about 70%. The 2024 event had the largest spatial footprint of any bleaching yet recorded there. That is the difference between a projection and a measurement, and it matters for the whole marine ecosystem — as it does for the Amazon, home to roughly a tenth of all known species on Earth.
Over a third of the Amazon rainforest is under serious threat due to climate change.
6. Heat Stress
The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions reports that the globe is getting hotter, leading to hotter days and fewer cold days. There have been twice as many hot days in the last ten years compared to the 1950s.
This explains why heatwaves have become more common and more intense. These heatwaves pose a great threat to people and natural ecosystems.
Extreme heat is a leading cause of weather-related death worldwide. The World Health Organization counts more than 166,000 deaths from heatwaves between 1998 and 2017, including over 70,000 in Europe during the 2003 heatwave alone. The trend since is the part worth holding on to: an estimated 210,000 more people died of heat-related causes each year in 2012–2021 than in the 1990s.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States, classified heat waves among the four deadliest disasters since 1980.
7. Air pollution
Climate change caused by human emissions has compromised the air quality we breathe. The air in the atmosphere is polluted and, therefore, unsafe to breathe. Hotter temperatures also cause air stagnation affecting the dispersion of pollutants.
This explains the prevalence of respiratory infections such as asthma and lung disease, especially in children and the elderly.
Air pollution also causes heart and lung complications. Many urban cities, such as Beijing and Tokyo, are grappling with the issue of air pollution. This has even been declared a public emergency issue in many countries.
The rainforests, also known as ‘the world’s lungs’, such as the Congo Basin and the Amazon, are depleting quickly. This is limiting the planet’s ability to deal with greenhouse emissions. As a result, most of these poisonous emissions end up in people’s respiratory systems, posing a great danger to their health.
See Related: What Makes a Fishery Sustainable
The Economic and Human Cost of Climate Change
Most reasons to care about climate change get framed as environmental. The argument that moves budgets, however, is economic — and it is the part most articles leave out. Climate change is already showing up in disaster bills, food prices, insurance markets and infrastructure repair, which is to say it is already showing up in individual lives.
Natural Disasters and Infrastructure
NOAA counts weather and climate disasters in the United States that each cause at least a billion dollars in damage. 2024 brought 27 of them, at a combined cost of roughly $182.7 billion and at least 568 deaths — second only to 2023’s record 28 events. The 2024 tally included 17 severe storm events, five tropical cyclones, two winter storms, one flood, one drought and one wildfire. Every one of those bills lands somewhere: on households, on insurers, on the public purse that rebuilds roads, power lines and water systems.
That is the practical meaning of “shifting weather patterns”. The infrastructure most countries built was designed against a climate record that no longer describes the conditions it now has to survive.
Agriculture, Food Prices and Poverty
Agriculture is where the climate signal reaches the most people fastest, because a bad harvest is a price rise. The World Bank’s Shock Waves report found that without climate-smart development, climate change could push more than 100 million additional people into poverty by 2030, and projected crop-yield losses raising food prices in Sub-Saharan Africa by about 12% on average relative to a no-climate-change scenario. The poorest regions — Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia — are hit hardest, and they are the regions that contributed least to the problem.
The mechanism runs through livelihoods rather than through headlines: reduced rainfall causes crop failure, soil erosion strips the land that is left, extreme weather spikes food prices, and heat waves and floods raise the incidence of disease. A household with no savings absorbs all four at once.
Does Individual Action Actually Matter?
Partly — and it is worth being honest about the limits. Reducing a personal carbon footprint (flying less, driving less, wasting less food, switching to a cleaner electricity tariff) reduces emissions in direct proportion to the change, which is small per person. Its larger effect is on demand signals and on the political normal that makes climate change mitigation possible at scale. The emissions that matter most are concentrated: a relatively small share of the world’s highest-consuming households accounts for a disproportionate slice of the total. Collective action is what converts individual choices into the multi-country policy shifts that move the carbon dioxide curve.
Put plainly: human activities caused this, over roughly two centuries of burning coal, oil and gas, and human activities are the only thing that will slow it.
Do Something to Counteract Climate Change Today
Climate change is a problem affecting everyone, irrespective of where you live. Already, the effects of climate change are being felt globally. This includes extreme weather events, food and water shortages, the spread of infectious diseases, and the loss of precious habitats.
Not taking stringent measures is playing a dangerous game with climate change, and our kids’ future is at risk.
Therefore, everyone must play a role in tackling climate change to improve the planet’s future. To consider sustainable living and patronize eco-friendly products, even enjoy sustainable gifts.
And, if the above reasons are not enough to make us care about climate change, I don’t know what will.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why should we care about climate change?
Because the effects are already measurable in things people depend on: sea level and coastal flood risk, food and water supply, the geographic range of insect-borne disease, wildfire conditions, habitat loss, heat deaths and air quality. 2024 was the warmest year in a 146-year record, and roughly 4 billion people already face severe water scarcity for at least one month a year.
What was the hottest year on record?
2024. NASA places it 1.28 °C above its 1951–1980 baseline, and the World Meteorological Organization puts it about 1.55 °C above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial average — the first calendar year measured above 1.5 °C. The ten warmest years in the record are the ten most recent.
How much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere now?
NOAA measured a global average of 422.8 parts per million across 2024, a record, after the largest single-year rise ever recorded (3.75 ppm). The seasonal peak at Mauna Loa Observatory passed 430 ppm for the first time in May 2025.
Is it too late to do anything about climate change?
No, and the distinction matters. The 1.5 °C figure in the Paris Agreement refers to a long-term average measured over roughly twenty years, not a single year, so 2024 crossing it does not close the question. Every tenth of a degree avoided reduces the impacts listed above, which is why emissions cuts still change outcomes rather than merely delaying them.
Why is climate change important?
Because it is a threat multiplier for systems people already depend on — agriculture, water supply, public health, insurance and infrastructure — rather than a single isolated problem. NOAA logged 27 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in the United States in 2024 alone, costing about $182.7 billion, and the World Bank projects climate change could push over 100 million more people into poverty by 2030.
Why don’t more people act on climate change?
Largely because the costs have historically felt distant in time and geography, and because individual lives rarely register a global average. That framing is now out of date: the impacts described on this page are measured, not projected, and several of them — food prices, insurance costs, disaster rebuilding — arrive as household bills rather than as environmental news.
What is the biggest single cause of climate change?
Burning fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas — for energy, transport and industry. That combustion is the dominant source of the carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere, which is why replacing fossil energy is the lever with the largest effect on every impact on this page.
Related Resources
- 12 Types of Terrain You Need to Know
- 15 Top Environmental Organizations in Africa
- Australian Koala Foundation
See Related: Guardians of the Globe: The Incredible Animals That Are Helping Fight Climate Change