What is Climate Change

The natural greenhouse effect warms the planet and allows humans to live on the Earth. For millions of years, water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases have occurred naturally, heating the atmosphere and making Earth habitable.

However, human activities, predominately the burning of fossil fuels, intensive agriculture and land clearing, are causing greenhouse gas concentrations to rise above natural levels, further heating the planet. This is called the enhanced greenhouse effect .

As the concentrations of these gases in the lower atmosphere grows, global temperatures rise, causing changes to weather conditions worldwide. The enhanced greenhouse effect is often referred to as global warming or climate change .