Why climate change matters

CNN provided visual clarity of the story of climate change and why it matters. The charts were included in the latest report created by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC reports that the current policy implemented to reduce greenhouse gases are insufficient to meet the goals established in the Paris Climate Agreement, and the globe has warmed by 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

This graphic shows the impacts climate change has on water availability, food production, health and well-being, cities and infrastructure and biodiversity and ecosystems.

Many of the worst impacts of climate change will come to pass in the lives of the youngest humans and future generations, as shown on the below chart. The extent to which current and future generations will experience a hotter and different world depends on choices we make now.

Responding to climate change requires changes in energy supplies, how food is produced, how water is managed, and where people live. The below infographic highlights the relative climate impact of various responses and adaptations.

The below graphic shows there is a rapidly narrowing window of opportunity to enable a sustainable future.

“There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all. Continued emissions will further affect all major climate system components, and many changes will be irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales and become larger with increasing global warming,” the IPCC reports.