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Climate change is the greatest environmental threat confronting the world. While there have been natural shifts in Earth's weather patterns for eons, the changing climate over the past few hundred years has been driven overwhelmingly by human activities. Activities such as burning fossil fuels increase the concentration of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, trapping more heat from the sun and raising global temperatures. Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas driving global climate change, though methane, hydrofluorocarbons, and other gases also contribute to a warming planet.
The effects of climate change can be seen worldwide in all aspects of life. Climate change is causing vast shifts in ecosystems and weather patterns, including stronger hurricanes, more intense wildfires, longer droughts, and an ice-free Arctic. Climate change is also detrimental to human health, could shrink economies, endangers national security, and is affecting and will continue to affect every part of society.
There is an urgent need to address climate change. Energy efficiency and renewable energy are the fastest, safest, cleanest, and most cost-effective means of reducing our use of fossil fuels and preventing the worst effects of climate change. Nature-based solutions, like ecosystem conservation and climate-smart agricultural practices, help protect biodiversity and natural systems while also storing carbon dioxide. In addition, techniques such as the direct capture of carbon dioxide from the air (direct air capture) and the capture, use, and storage of carbon emitted by industrial facilities will be necessary to reduce the carbon dioxide levels already present in the atmosphere.
Read more on climate change: Fossil Fuels | National Security and Energy Independence
Several gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, exist naturally in the atmosphere and contribute to the warming of the Earth's surface by trapping heat from the sun—a process known as the greenhouse effect. When the share of such greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is stable, the effect is beneficial, making surface temperatures friendly to life on Earth and reducing temperature swings.
Human activities like burning fossil fuels emit potent greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, among others. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2021 was 417 parts per million (ppm), which is higher than it has ever been over the last 800,000 years. Before the Industrial Revolution in North America and Europe, which began in about 1760, carbon dioxide levels averaged about 280 ppm. The rate at which carbon dioxide is being added to the atmosphere has been accelerating as well. In the 1960s, the growth rate was about 0.6 ppm per year. During the 2010s, that rate increased to 2.4 ppm per year.
There is broad scientific agreement that human activities, most notably the burning of fossil fuels for energy, have led to the rapid buildup in atmospheric greenhouse gases. Over 97 percent of actively publishing scientists agree, and have written so in numerous peer-reviewed scientific journals.
In a 2021 report providing an update on the physical science of climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a global body of the United Nations that provides s
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