Impacts

Flooded village in southern France, close to a nuclear power station. Earlier in 2003 the same area experienced a long drought. Climate change means more extreme weather like flooding and droughts.

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No one knows how much warming is "safe". What we do know is that climate change is already harming people and ecosystems. Its reality can be seen in melting glaciers, disintegrating polar ice, thawing permafrost, dying coral reefs, rising sea levels, changing ecosystems and fatal heat waves. And it is not only scientists that are witnessing these changes. From Inuit in the far north to islanders near the equator - people are already struggling with the impacts of climate change.

But all of this is only the beginning. We are already experiencing dangerous climate change…we need to act to avoid catastrophic climate change. While not all regional effects are yet known, here are some likely future effects if we allow current trends to continue:

Relatively likely and early effects of small to moderate warming

Sea level rise due to melting glaciers and the thermal expansion of the oceans as global temperature increases
Massive releases of greenhouse gases from melting permafrost and dying forests.
A high risk of more extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts and floods. Already, the global incidence of drought has doubled over the past 30 years.
Severe impacts on a regional level. For example, in Europe, river flooding will increase over much of the continent, and in coastal areas the risk of flooding, erosion and wetland loss will increase substantially.
Natural systems, including glaciers, coral reefs, mangroves, arctic ecosystems, alpine ecosystems, boreal forests, tropical forests, prairie wetlands and native grasslands, will be severely threatened.
An increase in existing risks of species extinction and biodiversity loss.
The greatest impacts will be on the poorer countries least able to protect themselves from rising sea levels, spread of disease and declines in agricultural production in the developing countries of Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
At all scales of climate change, developing countries will suffer the most.

Longer term catastrophic effects if warming continues

Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet melting. Unless checked, warming from emissions may trigger the irreversible meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet in the coming decades, which would add up to seven meters of sea-level rise, over some centuries; there is new evidence that the rate of ice discharge from parts of the Antarctic mean that it is also at risk of meltdown.
The Atlantic Gulf Stream current slowing, shifting or shutting down, having dramatic effects in Europe, and disrupting the global ocean circulation system;
Catastrophic releases of methane from the oceans leading to rapid increases in methane in the atmosphere and consequent warming.

Never before has humanity been forced to grapple with such an immense environmental crisis. If we do not take urgent and immediate action to stop global warming, the damage could become irreversible.

Greenpeace briefing paper: IPCC's Third Assesment Report (pdf)

World Bank, Pentagon: global warming red alert

Latest news

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125 million climate refugees?

'Hope for the best, plan for the worst', is the mantra of emergency planners everywhere. But, for 125 million people living in the low lying areas of South Asia, when it comes to climate change there is no plan that will adequately address the worst consequences.

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Stop agriculture from killing the climate

Industrial agriculture is killing the climate. But it is possible to turn this key source of greenhouse gas emissions into a carbon sink, our new report 'Cool Farming: Climate impacts of agriculture and mitigation potential' reveals.

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Indonesian forest destruction dammed

Our volunteers and local forest communities have halted the destruction of an area of swamp forest in Sumatra, Indonesia. They are building five dams across three-metre deep canals used in logging and draining peatland for conversion into a commercial palm oil plantation.

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World Park Arctic

Global warming is melting the Arctic at an alarming pace. This summer the Arctic ice cover was the smallest ever recorded. As a result, a host of countries are seeking to drill for the oil and gas once protected by ice.

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600 strip naked on glacier in global warming protest

An emergency provokes extreme responses: human beings in danger will abandon social niceties, etiquette, and the norms of acceptable behaviour to raise an alarm any way they can when lives are in danger. Today, six hundred people shed their clothes on a glacier in the Swiss Alps to bodily cry out for help against a planetary emergency: global warming.

Parental warning: the story below contains nudity

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600 strip naked on glacier in global warming protest

Parental warning: the story below contains nudity

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More heavy rain, predicted

Computer models of how our world will react to climate change have long predicted extreme and shifting weather patterns. More heavy rains in some areas, crippling drought in others. A new study, published this week in the journal Nature, compared recorded precipitation to predicted precipitation - and confirmed we're changing our weather.

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Himalayan glacial melt

Glaciers in the Himalayas provide the water source for one-sixth of humanity. Now that water source is threatened by climate change. As the temperature rises, these reservoirs of ice disappear. Guanli Wang, a journalist with China S&T, reports back after taking part in an expedition documenting how this is happening right before our eyes.

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Ark being built on Mount Ararat

Greenpeace activists have started construction on a replica of Noah's Ark, 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) above sea level. Many people believe that Mount Ararat is the place where Noah's Ark landed after the floods. The replica ark is designed to be a symbol of hope and dramatic plea to world leaders to take far-reaching and urgent action to avoid catastrophic global warming.

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Award winning pictures from Greenland

Nick Cobbing won second prize in "Picture of the Year" for his work during the Greenpeace expedition to Greenland in the summer of 2005, in the category "Science and Natural History".