Particularly influential and summary pieces are marked with a *
General
Consensus on human-caused climate change
Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature (2021 article in Environmental Research Letters)
Overview reports
From climate change ‘certainty’ to rapid decline: a timeline of IPCC reports (2023, timeline article in The Guardian)
*Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023 – 6th Assessment Report by the IPCC (summary of all working group reports)
What is the IPCC AR6 synthesis report and why does it matter? (2023, article in The Guardian)
Scientists deliver ‘final warning’ on climate crisis: act now or it’s too late (2023, article in The Guardian)
Humanity at the climate crossroads: highway to hell or a livable future? (2023, article in The Guardian)
*State of the Global Climate in 2021 – report by the World Meteorological Organization
*Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis – 6th Assessment Report by the IPCC (wg 1)
There is no ‘getting back to normal’ with climate breakdown (2021, article in The Guardian on IPCC 2022 report ‘The Physical Science Basis’)
Environmental review of 2022: another mile on the ‘highway to climate hell’ (2022, article in The Guardian)
Heating so far & heating projections
— for a list of recent extreme weather events please see page Extreme Weather Events
Earth is on track to exceed 1.5C warming in the next decade, study using AI finds (2023, article in The Guardian)
Global Heating 1880-current – graph by Our World in Data
Europe’s climate warming at twice rate of global average, says report (2022, article in The Guardian based on WMO report)
Accelerated western European heatwave trends linked to more-persistent double jets over Eurasia (2022, article in Nature Communications)
When will the world reach 1.5C of global heating? (2022, article in The Guardian)
New data reveals extraordinary global heating in the Arctic (2022, article in The Guardian)
A third of the American population is currently experiencing rapid, above-average rates of temperature increase (2022, article in The Guardian — see also this photo essay)
Drivers
Greenhouse gas emissions
CO2 Emissions Statistics by Our World in Data
CO2 Emissions by Sector by Our World in Data
Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases – statistics by Our World in Data
Global Registry of Fossil Fuel Emissions & Reserves – open-source database of oil, gas and coal production and reserves globally, expressed in CO2-equivalent
MCC Carbon Clock – shows how much CO2 can be released into the atmosphere to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5°C and 2°C, respectively.
Burning world’s fossil fuel reserves could emit 3.5tn tons of greenhouse gas: Global emissions from fossil fuel reserves would exceed carbon budget by more than seven times (2022, article in The Guardian based on data by Global Registry of Fossil Fuels)
Methane in Earth’s atmosphere rose by record amount last year, US government data shows (2022, article in The Guardian)
Why gas is the new coal (2021, report by Climate Analytics)
The carbon footprint of the military (2021, article by Scientists for Global Responsibility)
Destruction of carbon sinks (e.g. through wildfires & deforestation)
— please see page The Ecological & Biodiversity Crisis
Effects Now
General
*Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability – 6th Assessment Report by the IPCC (wg 2)
IPCC issues ‘bleakest warning yet’ on impacts of climate breakdown (2022, article in The Guardian on IPCC 2022 report ‘Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’)
Environmental risks have the potential to yield the most damage to people and the planet in the future (Global Risks Report 2022 by the World Economic Forum)
Heatwaves & drought
Ethiopia’s drought-stricken internally displaced people – in pictures (2023, photo essay in The Guardian)
Over-consumption and drought reduce lake in vital Spanish wetland to puddle (2022, article in The Guardian)
Heatwaves at both of Earth’s poles alarm climate scientists (2022, article in The Guardian)
Rainfall & floods
Satellite imaging reveals increased proportion of population exposed to floods (2020, article in Nature)
Ice sheet melting/sea level rise
Fate of ‘sleeping giant’ East Antarctic ice sheet ‘in our hands’ – study (2022, article in The Guardian based on article in Nature)
‘It’s happening now’: how rising sea levels are causing a US migration crisis (2022, article in The Guardian)
Satellite data shows entire Conger ice shelf has collapsed in Antarctica (2022, article in The Guardian)
Scientists watch giant ‘doomsday’ glacier in Antarctica with concern (2021, article in The Guardian)
Effects on ecosystems
— please also see page The Ecological & Biodiversity Crisis
Global heating has caused ‘shocking’ changes in forests across the Americas, studies find (2022, article in The Guardian based on this & this article in Nature)
Rain to replace snow in the Arctic as climate heats, study finds (2021, article in The Guardian)
Oceans
Arctic Ocean acidifying up to four times as fast as other oceans, study finds (2022, article in The Guardian based on article in Science)
Mediterranean ecosystem suffering ‘marine wildfire’ as temperatures peak (2022, article in The Guardian)
Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse (2021, article in The Guardian based on article in Nature Climate Change)
We study ocean temperatures. The Earth just broke a heat increase record (2021, article in The Guardian)
Effects on animals
Billions gone: what’s behind the disappearance of Alaska snow crabs? Authorities close snow crab season for first time as numbers of the prized seafood crash from 11bn to 2bn in four years (2022, article in The Guardian)
Thousands of salmon found dead as Canada drought dries out river: A lack of rain on the western coasts saw 65,000 dead salmon wash up on the creek (2022, article in The Guardian)
Dead in their nests or washed ashore: why thousands of seabirds are dying en masse (2022, article in The Guardian)
Climate stress can give bumblebees asymmetrical wings, study finds (2022, article in The Guardian based on article in Journal of Animal Ecology)
Falling birds and dehydrated hedgehogs: heatwave takes its toll on UK wildlife (2022, article in The Guardian)
Mollusc mass mortality event: can Spain’s giant fan mussels recover? (2022, article in The Guardian)
Thousands of cattle dead due to heatwave in Kansas (2022, article in The Guardian)
Many bird species nesting and laying eggs nearly a month early [due to global heating], study says (2022, article in The Guardian)
Direct effects of warming temperatures on Arctic seabirds – limited heat tolerance and mortality (2021, article in the Journal of Experimental Biology)
Baked barnacles, scorched cherries: the disastrous impact of heatwaves on plants and animals (2021, article in The Guardian)
Effects on plants
Plants at risk of extinction as climate crisis disrupts animal migration (2022, article in Science covered in The Guardian)
Effects on health
The Global Climate Health Alliance
Harmed by Heat – The Guardian‘s collection of articles on the impacts of rising temperatures on workers’ rights and human health (2019-22)
UK study adds to evidence of air pollution link to long-term illness: Research found greater chances of multiple chronic illnesses in people living in polluted areas (2022, article in The Guardian)
Global health at mercy of fossil fuel addiction, warn scientists (2022, article in The Guardian based on report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change)
Toxic air pollution particles found in lungs and brains of unborn babies (2022, article in The Guardian based on article in The Lancet Planetary Health)
Healthy teenagers at risk of irregular heartbeats from air pollution, says study (2022, article in The Guardian)
Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution: Scientists uncover link between car fumes and lung cancer that helps explain why so many non-smokers develop disease (2022, article in The Guardian)
Even low levels of air pollution can damage health, study finds (2022, article in The Guardian based on study for the US Health Effects Institute)
Air pollution is ‘likely’ to raise dementia risk, find UK government experts (2022, article in The Guardian)
More than 800 deaths may have been avoided due to air quality improvements during the first lockdown phase in Europe (2022, article by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
Impacts of climate change on reproductive, perinatal and paediatric health (2022, special issue of Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemology, covered also in The Guardian)
Global heating is cutting sleep across the world, study finds (2022, article in The Guardian based on article in One Earth)
*The mortality cost of carbon (2021, article in Nature Communications)
Global urban population exposure to extreme heat: Globally, urban heat exposure increased nearly 200% between 1983 and 2016, affecting 1.7 billion people (2021, article in PNAS)
Fall in fertility rates may be linked to fossil fuel pollution, finds study (2021, article in The Guardian)
Revealed: air pollution may be damaging ‘every organ in the body’ (2019, article in The Guardian based on review article published in Chest Journal)
*7 million premature deaths annually linked to air pollution (2014, news release by the World Health Organization)
Effects on agriculture & food provision
Climate crisis and neglect threaten Spain’s saffron crop: Growers fear a perfect storm for a tradition that has long bound rural communities together (2023, article in The Guardian)
Waterlogged wheat, rotting oranges: five crops devastated by a year of extreme weather (2022, article in The Guardian)
‘We have no dry land left’: impact of Pakistan floods to be felt for years: Floods destroyed at least 4m acres of farmland, and with large areas still under water, new crops cannot be sown (2022, article in The Guardian)
*Hunger in a heating world: How the climate crisis is fuelling hunger in an already hungry world (2022, report by Oxfam)
‘Water is our most precious resource’: alfalfa farmers asked to give up crop amid megadrought in US south-west (2022, article in The Guardian)
Horn of Africa drought places 22 million people at risk of starvation, says UN -Four years of failed rains in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia have left the region facing catastrophe this year (2022, article in The Guardian)
Falls in Europe’s crop yields due to heatwaves could worsen price rises (2022, article in The Guardian based on this article in the JRC Mars Bulletin)
Spain warns heatwave threatens olive oil production (2022, article in The Guardian)
Northern Italy drought threatens olive oil, risotto rice and passata supplies (2022, article in The Guardian)
Major New Zealand salmon producer shuts farms as warming waters cause mass die-offs (2022, article in The Guardian)
Low worldwide wine production volumes due to unfavorable climatic conditions (2021, statement by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine)
Frosts, heatwaves and wildfires: the climate crisis is hitting the wine industry hard (2021, article in The Guardian)
How rising seas are ruining Gambia’s rice farmers (2021, article in The Guardian)
Everything is changing’: the struggle for food as Malawi’s Lake Chilwa shrinks (2021, article in the Guardian)
Costs
Funding needed for climate disasters has risen ‘more than 800%’ in 20 years: Only about half the funds required are being provided by rich countries (2022, article in The Guardian, based on report by Oxfam)
Extreme weather has cost Europe about €500bn in period between 1980 and 2020 (2022, report by the European Environment Agency)
10 most costly extreme weather events in 2021 have cost world 170 bn (2021, report by Christian Aid)
Effects on specific countries, regions & communities
Living on the frontlines of global heating series – The Guardian‘s collection of articles on how the climate crisis disrupts the lives of people around the world
Africa
‘We have travelled for a month to find grass’: climate crisis piles pressure on Senegal’s herders (2022, article in The Guardian)
‘We just pray for rain’: Niger is in the eye of the climate crisis – and children are starving (2022, article in The Guardian)
The village that stood up to big oil – and won: The fossil fuel industry faces a reckoning in the Niger Delta after disaster left families ‘eating, drinking, breathing the oil’ (2022, article in The Guardian)
We relied on the lake. Now it’s killing us’: climate crisis threatens future of Kenya’s El Molo people (2022, article in The Guardian)
‘There is not enough food. The situation is dire’: Somalia’s drought crisis – in pictures (2022, article in The Guardian)
Asia
Death in the marshes: environmental calamity hits Iraq’s unique wetlands: Rivers and lakes that have nurtured communities since civilisation’s dawn are drying up, as drought leads to hunger, displacement and simmering conflict (2023, article in The Guardian)
‘The green land is a barren desert’: water scarcity hits Iraq’s Fertile Crescent (2022, article in The Guardian)
‘We have no dry land left’: impact of Pakistan floods to be felt for years: Floods destroyed at least 4m acres of farmland, and with large areas still under water, new crops cannot be sown (2022, article in The Guardian)
Afghanistan is facing a climate calamity – it’s time the world took notice (2022, article in The Guardian)
‘We live and die by it’: climate crisis threatens Bangladesh’s Sundarbans (2022, article in The Guardian)
‘Every year it gets worse’: on the frontline of the climate crisis in Bangladesh (2022, article in The Guardian)
India’s wheat farmers count cost of 40C heat that evokes ‘deserts of Rajasthan’ (2022, article in The Guardian)
Intense rainfall and extreme weather become the norm in northern China (2021, article in The Guardian)
Australia
Europe
The impact of drought in England: water restrictions, fire risks and farming hardship (2022, article in The Guardian)
Act now on water or face emergency queues on the streets, UK warned (2022, article in The Guardian)
Postcards from a 40C future: what extreme heat means for the UK – regarding transport, cities and health services (2022, article in The Guardian)
Millions may face hosepipe ban after England’s driest July since 1911 (2022, article in The Guardian)
More than 100 towns in Italy’s Po valley asked to ration water (2022, article in The Guardian)
Quiet flows the Po: the life and slow death of Italy’s longest river (2022, article in The Guardian)
Middle East
Oceania
North America
New York City is sinking due to weight of its skyscrapers, new research finds (2023, article in The Guardian)
South America
Effects in Future
General
Helix – EU-funded project developing future scenarios of the natural and human world as a consequence of 1.5°C, 2°C and 4°C global warming.
Sea level rise
Sea level rise in England ‘will put 200,000 homes at risk by 2050’ (2022, article in The Guardian, based on article in Ocean and Coastal Management)
Picturing our Future – sea level rise risk maps and city visuals, based on peer reviewed research (2021, website by Climate Central)
Unprecedented threats to cities from multi-century sea level rise (2021, article in Environmental Research Letters)
Heatwaves
The terrifying truth: Britain’s a hothouse, but one day 40C will seem cool (2022, opinion article in The Guardian)
Drought and water scarcity
Global water crisis will intensify with climate breakdown (2021, article in The Guardian)
Wildfires
Scientists’ warning on extreme wildfire risks to water supply (2022, article in Hydrological Processes)
Wildfires likely to increase by a third by 2050, warns UN (2022, article in The Guardian)
Effects on health
Next pandemic may come from melting glaciers, new data shows (2022, article in The Guardian based on article in Proceedings of The Royal Society B)
Over half of known human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by climate change (2022, article in Nature Climate Change)
Numbers of people exposed to extreme, potentially fatal heat stress could increase nearly 15-fold if the world’s temperature rise reaches 2°C (2021, article by the UK Met Office)
More than 200 health journals call for urgent action on climate crisis (2021, article in The Guardian)
Forced displacement
The century of climate migration: why we need to plan for the great upheaval (2022, article in The Guardian)
Tipping Points and Runaway Heating
Tipping points & feedback loops
*Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points (2022, article in Science)
‘Carbon timebomb’: climate crisis threatens to destroy Congo peatlands: Vast carbon store may be close to point where it could flip from absorbing CO2 to releasing it, research shows (2022, article in The Guardian based on article in Nature)
Tree loss due to fire is worst in far northern latitudes, data shows – Forests in Russia are most affected, as scientists warn of escape of huge quantities of buried carbon dioxide (2022, article in The Guardian based on report by Global Forest Watch)
Climate crisis: Amazon rainforest tipping point is looming, data shows (2022, article in The Guardian)
Earth’s tipping points could be closer than we think. Our current plans won’t work (2021, article in The Guardian)
‘Even the safe operating space of 1.5 or 2.0 degrees above present generally assumed by the IPCC might not be all that safe’ (2021, comment by Michael Ghil, University of Copenhagen)
Greenland ice sheet on brink of major tipping point, says study – Scientists say ice equivalent to 1-2 metres of sea level rise is probably already doomed to melt (2021, article in The Guardian based on article in PNAS)
*AMOC: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (2021, article in Nature Climate Change)
Methane much more sensitive to global heating than previously thought – study (2022, article in The Guardian, based on this paper in Nature Communications)
Global wildfires in 2021 led to record carbon emissions – 148% more than total EU fossil fuel emissions in 2020 (2021, article by the EU Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service)
*Amazon near tipping point of switching from rainforest to savannah – study (2020, article in The Guardian based on article in Nature Communications)
Ecosystems the size of Amazon ‘can collapse within decades’ (2020, article in The Guardian)
*Climate tipping points – too risky to bet against (2019, article in Nature)
Runaway global heating
The big picture on Hothouse Earth – video by the Stockholm Resilience Centre
Climate endgame: risk of human extinction ‘dangerously underexplored’ (2022, article in The Guardian based on article in PNAS)
Hothouse Earth: An inhabitant’s guide (2022, book by Bill McGuire)
‘Soon the world will be unrecognisable’: is it still possible to prevent total climate meltdown? (2022, article in The Observer relating to the book Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide by Bill McGuire)
*Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene (2018, article coining the ‘Hothouse Earth’ concept, published in PNAS)
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