Global warming doesn’t mean we’ll all just have warmer weather in future.

As the planet heats, climate patterns change. It’ll mean more extreme and unpredictable weather across the world – many places will be hotter, some wetter, others drier.

We know the planet has warmed by an average of nearly 1°C in the past century. That might not sound much, but on a global scale it’s a huge increase and it’s creating big problems for people and wildlife.

A rise of just 2°c would mean:

• severe storms and floods in some countries, droughts in many more
• seas become more acidic, coral and krill die, food chains are destroyed
• little or no Arctic sea ice in summer – not just bad news for polar bears, it also means that the global climate warms faster (as there’s less polar ice to deflect sunlight)

Beyond 2°c:

Scientists predict possible rises of up to 6°C this century if we don’t drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions.

It almost doesn’t bear thinking about what this would mean:

• Rainforests dying.
• Increased melting of the ancient ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.
• Dramatic sea level rises.
• And people and animals suffering along the way.

That’s why we must act now.