Effects of Climate Change Stories

In March 2024, Cyclone Gamane struck Madagascar, causing extensive flooding, wind damage, and agricultural losses.² The cyclone's impacts were severe, with heavy rainfall leading to flooding in the regions of Diana, Sava, and Analanjirofo. Rivers overflowed, inundating homes, schools, and agricultural lands, carrying away cattle, and causing extensive damage to infrastructure, including two major bridges. The cyclone impacted 535,000 people, displaced over 22,000, resulted in 18 deaths, and increased the transmission of waterborne diseases.³ In addition, the agricultural sector suffered greatly, losing crops and livestock and in turn magnifying food insecurity and upending livelihoods.

From deadly wildfires in Texas to devastating floods in North Carolina, disasters have wreaked havoc across the US in 2024, set to be the world’s hottest year on record. They shook millions of lives and caused billions of dollars in damage. As the climate crisis intensifies, there is no question that the intensity and frequency of extreme weather – often resulting in disasters – is increasing.

This fall marks a pivotal moment for the future of nature conservation. In late October, world governments will meet in Colombia to continue work on the most ambitious plan ever to save the vast array of diversity of life on planet Earth.

Tackling the climate crisis will be one of the biggest challenges of our time, and nature itself can contribute to the fight. 

Climate change is impacting our planet faster than anyone had predicted. With storms increasing in number and severity, with temperatures rising to unsupportable levels, with more flooding and more sea level rise and saltwater encroachment, we’re seeing more and more records getting broken. But these are the kinds of record-breaking events that cost lives and livelihoods, that harm our communities and the natural resources that sustain us.

String. Toothpaste. Burgers. Fertilizer. Makeup. Printer ink. What do all of these things have in common?

They all can be made with seaweed! Commonly categorized into red, green, and brown species, seaweed is a broad term for plants and algae that live in the ocean. In the US, farming kelp, a brown macroalgae, is a rapidly growing industry. Farmed seaweed is good for people and good for nature!

There are more than 530 species of sharks in our oceans today protecting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems, which helps ensure a healthy ocean and climate.

On the surface, brown kelp might not look like the most exciting plant. But when it comes to tackling the climate crisis, this large algae—one of around 12,000 species of seaweed worldwide—has superpowers. It can store harmful greenhouse gases, reduce the carbon footprint of the global food system, help coastal communities adapt to climate impacts, and even be made into a climate-friendly alternative to plastic!

The new Climate-Smart Mangrove Tool will help ensure the long-term viability and effectiveness of mangroves in the fight against the climate crisis. 

More worrying than climate deniers are those that believe the climate crisis can't be stopped. But we can't let that zap our motivation. With collective action, change is possible.

Elephants’ important role in maintaining biodiversity and healthy ecosystems has earned them various names including ecosystem engineers, seed dispersers, and forest gardeners. However, African forest elephants—a species inhabiting the dense rain forests of central Africa—are increasingly recognized by another name: ‘climate hero.’

Using cutting-edge technology, researchers are uncovering profound links among ocean health, climate change, and the denizens of the deep

After the hottest year on record, here's what we can expect—and what we must accomplish—to combat the climate crisis in the year ahead.

The theme for the 2024 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos is “Rebuilding Trust,” a timely choice given the pledge that 190 nations made at last year’s UN climate conference (COP28) a few months ago to transition away from fossil fuels. The gathering at Davos is an opportunity for the government leaders and powerhouses in business and culture in attendance to take on the challenge of delivering this promise of a clean energy transition. The World Economic Forum is putting its stated goal of driving trust and accountability to the test, and the world is watching.

After days of intense negotiations, a landmark agreement emerged from the UN climate summit in Dubai, marking a significant step towards addressing the climate crisis. For the first time in history, the agreement explicitly calls on all nations to transition away from fossil fuels, a crucial step in curbing greenhouse gas emissions and limiting global warming.

The negotiators gathering in Dubai today for the UN COP28 climate summit are fully aware of the challenge before them. The first iteration of the global stocktake report, a key component of the Paris Agreement released in the lead-up to this year’s summit, paints a sobering picture: while we have made strides since 2010, the current trajectory of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions still falls perilously short of the targets set to limit warming.

With over 100,000 attendees in the massive Dubai Expo Center, it's halftime at the Superbowl of climate change talks—but this is no game. Our fate as a planet hangs in the balance of what is happening here.

This year is set to be the hottest year ever recorded, according to an announcement by the World Meteorological Organization at critical international climate talks underway in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

This year’s COP is critical as an inflection point in the transition away from fossil fuels and towards a renewable energy economy. We need to rapidly scale clean energy, and we need to do it while minimizing harm to nature.

The 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) is the United Nations’ 28th annual climate summit, and it is being held at a critical time for the world. The summit is taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12.

Carbon is essential to life on Earth. As the atmosphere has evolved, the amount of carbon in it has increased due to human activity, primarily from burning fossil fuels, resulting in the climate crisis. 

In a first-of-its-kind analysis, WWF and Boston Consulting Group compare a rapid transition to renewable energy to our current approach dominated by fossil fuels across key areas. The results show that a rapid transition to renewable energy is dramatically better for nature, human health and safety, and jobs.

In the southern highlands of Tanzania, a group of community members from Igombavu village are working with the CARE-WWF Alliance to increase their standards of living while also protecting their environments. The Manzigira group (Swahili for “Environment”) is leading the village in growing and replanting riparian (or water-friendly) trees to restore and stabilize water banks that have been damaged, while also establishing community bylaws to restrict further misuse of the land.

In these strange days of summer, we witnessed an extreme climate high and an extreme climate low. Both have significant implications for the planet’s health and for confronting the climate crisis moving forward.