2015–2025 were the eleven hottest years in the observational record.
An atlas of a warming world
The climate crisis is not one disaster. It is a change in the conditions behind every life.
No small degree
Every fraction of warming changes what is possible—and what is lost.
Enter the evidenceCarbon dioxide reached its highest concentration in at least 800,000 years.
The ocean stores most of Earth’s excess energy and reached another observed high.
A loaded climate.
Weather is one roll. Climate changes the odds of every roll.
A cold day still happens in a warming world. What changes is the distribution: heat that was rare becomes common, extremes reach further, and several hazards can arrive together.
IPCC synthesis report
Climate distribution lab
Conceptual model · not literal odds
At today’s warming level, hot outcomes occupy more of the distribution and extremes become more likely.
Heat comes in. Less escapes.
Greenhouse gases do not create energy. They slow its return to space.
Sunlight warms Earth’s surface. The surface emits heat upward. Added carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide absorb and re-emit part of that heat, increasing the energy retained by the climate system.
NASA evidence
Atmospheric heat trap
CO₂ concentration
425.7parts per million
The signal is everywhere.
Atmosphere, ocean, ice, and living systems all tell the same story.
Temperature2025
+1.43°C
Above the 1850–1900 average; the second- or third-warmest year on record.
Carbon dioxide2025
425.7ppm · projected annual concentration
About 280 ppm before industrialization; now higher than at any time in at least 800,000 years.
Ocean heat2025
Record
The warming rate from 2005–2025 was more than twice the rate observed from 1960–2005.
Sea level2012–2025
4.75mm per year
Compared with 2.65 mm per year from 1993–2011. The rate has accelerated.
Glaciers2024/25
Top 5 loss
Reference glaciers recorded one of the five most negative annual mass balances observed.
Arctic sea ice2025
Record low
The annual maximum daily extent was the lowest in the observed record.
Not a mystery. A system.
The atmosphere records the sum of energy, industry, transport, buildings, and land-use decisions.
Individual choices exist inside infrastructure, policy, markets, and access. Meaningful climate action changes both demand and the systems that shape it.
IPCC mitigation reportGlobal GHG emissions by sector
2019 · approximate shares
Energy supply
34%
Industry
24%
Land & food
22%
Transport
15%
Buildings
6%
38.1 GtFossil CO₂ projected for 2025—another record high.
Rounded sector shares may not sum to exactly 100%. Fossil CO₂ total and sector shares describe different accounting scopes.
Nothing changes alone.
Climate risk compounds through the systems people depend on.
A heatwave is also an energy event, a labor event, a health event, and—when crops or transport fail—a price event. Concurrent hazards make impacts harder to predict and manage.
Longer, hotter extremes
Raises mortality, strains grids, reduces labor capacity, and dries landscapes.
Too much. Too little.
Heavier rainfall and deeper drought can affect the same region at different times.
Yield and price shocks
Heat, drought, flood, pests, and supply disruptions can combine across borders.
Every system reaches the body
Heat stress, smoke, disease, malnutrition, displacement, and mental harm overlap.
Warmer, higher, more acidic
Heat expansion, melting land ice, and absorbed CO₂ transform coasts and ecosystems.
Adaptation has limits
Species can move, adapt, or decline—but the pace and available habitat constrain them.
Infrastructure meets extremes
Design standards based on the past face conditions they were not built to withstand.
Risk reshapes where life is viable
Displacement is usually driven by climate interacting with economic and political pressure.
3.6B
people already live in contexts highly vulnerable to climate change.
Exposure is only part of risk. Income, health systems, housing, governance, historical inequality, and access to finance determine who can prepare, recover, or move.
WHO climate and health
Contribution
Emissions are historically concentrated.
Consequences
Damage is concentrated where protection is weakest.
Every fraction avoided matters.
There is no cliff after which action becomes meaningless. There are worsening levels of risk.
Some change is now unavoidable. Much more remains avoidable. The speed and depth of emissions cuts this decade largely determine the climate inherited for centuries.
UNEP emissions gap
Explore a 2100 warming level
1.5°C and 2°C are Paris Agreement reference levels. About 2.8°C reflects UNEP’s 2025 estimate under current policies.
Current-policy direction
Severe, widespread and increasingly compounding risk.
More people and ecosystems reach adaptation limits. Extreme events intensify and interact more often, while irreversible losses become more likely.
Change the systems.
The tools exist. The question is scale, speed, access, and political choice.
Mitigation reduces the change. Adaptation reduces harm from change already occurring. Both are necessary, and both work best when equity is designed in from the start.
Clean electricity
Replace unabated fossil generation, strengthen grids, storage, and access.
MitigationEfficient electrification
Use clean power for transport, buildings, and suitable industrial processes.
BothMethane cuts
Reduce leaks, waste emissions, and high-emitting agricultural sources quickly.
Fast impactProtect and restore ecosystems
Safeguard carbon stores, biodiversity, water, coastlines, and livelihoods.
BothResilient places
Prepare health, water, housing, food, and early-warning systems for new extremes.
AdaptationFinance and governance
Redirect capital, standards, procurement, and policy toward measurable transition.
EnablerProjected growth in fossil CO₂ emissions in 2025, reaching another record.
Renewable power capacity added in 2025—85.6% of total capacity expansion.
Act where you have leverage.
A person is more than a consumer.
You may also be a neighbor, voter, worker, manager, investor, parent, student, designer, engineer, or public servant. Climate agency grows when personal action connects to collective and structural change.
The future
is still
a range.
We cannot return to the climate of the past. We can still decide how far the change goes.
Deep, rapid, and sustained emissions cuts slow warming. Adaptation protects lives. Justice makes both more durable. Delay increases cost, loss, and dependence on uncertain future removal.
Read the evidenceTrust is part of the design.
- 01World Meteorological OrganizationState of the Global Climate 2025 · observations and key indicatorsOpen ↗
- 02Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeAR6 Synthesis Report · causes, impacts, risks, and responseOpen ↗
- 03UN Environment ProgrammeEmissions Gap Report 2025 · pathways and policy trajectoryOpen ↗
- 04Global Carbon ProjectGlobal Carbon Budget 2025 · emissions, sinks, and remaining budgetOpen ↗
- 05World Health OrganizationClimate change and health · vulnerability and health pathwaysOpen ↗
- 06International Renewable Energy AgencyRenewable Capacity Statistics 2026 · 2025 capacity additionsOpen ↗
Essential distinctions
Weather and climate
Weather describes short-term atmospheric conditions. Climate describes statistical patterns over longer periods. Climate change shifts the range and likelihood of weather outcomes.
Annual temperature and long-term warming
A single year above 1.5°C does not mean the Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature threshold has formally been crossed. Long-term warming is assessed over multi-year periods.
Observed, projected, and scenario-based
Observed values come from measurements. Projected values estimate a likely future quantity. Scenarios are conditional explorations: what happens if a defined pathway occurs.
Mitigation and adaptation
Mitigation limits future climate change by reducing emissions or increasing removals. Adaptation reduces vulnerability and exposure to climate effects. Neither substitutes for the other.