Our planet is in crisis, and it is because we are not doing enough, nor fast enough, to tackle the climate change. It affects every corner of our planet - from the poles to the tropics, and from the mountains to the oceans.

People and nature worldwide are already feeling the effects: water supplies are shrinking, extreme weather events increasing in frequency and intensity, forests burning, and coral reefs dying. 2023 was the hottest year on record, and 2024 is on track to break that record.

We can still escape the worst impacts of climate change if we - governments, companies, cities, and communities - come together to urgently reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate change is caused by the increase in greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere. This is driven by human activities - primarily the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) and land-use change, such as deforestation.

Our climate system is in crisis, and it’s because of our actions (or rather, inaction) on climate change.

The hottest year on record was 2023, with many climate records shattered. Scientists are already predicting that 2024 will break the 2023 record of being the hottest year since climate records began in the 1800s.

A significant new record has just been set. In June, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced that the world had 12 consecutive months of global temperatures reaching 1.5°C, the upper limit of global warming to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. 

Our planet and its people are resilient. But some impacts are escalating too quickly and occurring too frequently for the world to be able to adapt and avoid devastating impacts.

Vulnerable communities and countries bear the brunt of climate impacts because they have the least resources and are the least able to prepare as a result. 

The longer we delay taking climate action, the fewer options we have.

There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for people and nature.

We already have solutions across every sector to more than halve emissions by 2030. They must be rapidly scaled up, before it is too late.

Climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution.

With government, business and civil society working together to make development choices that prioritise risk-reduction, equity and justice and ensure integrated responses. 

We need transformational systemic solutions, from how we get our energy, how we move around and what we eat. 

We must end our dependence on polluting fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and shift to a more fair and efficient energy system powered by renewables. 

We must urgently invest in and drastically scale up adaptation solutions so we can build resilience and help to protect people and nature. 

Science shows us how incredible nature is - it has slowed global warming and helped protect us from more severe impacts of a warming world.

The world’s oceans, plants, animals, and soils have absorbed 54% of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions of the past 10 years.

Nature is a non-negotiable part of the solution to the climate crisis.

At WWF, we are working to tackle the climate crisis in a variety of ways to create a climate-resilient, net-zero future, our work has a global reach and impact. 

We work on adaptation. WWF helps people cope with the current impacts of climate change, reduce future risks and improve resilience in a warming world. We promote the use of nature-based solutions for climate adaptation in disaster risk reduction. We support the development of national adaptation plans. 

We work on energy. We campaign to phase out fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas). We work to accelerate the implementation of and scale up renewable energy. We promote a faster, fairer transition to renewable and energy efficiency. We encourage governments to increase investment in renewable, efficient and sustainable energy solutions.  

We work with cities. Solutions exist to meet the demands of urban lifestyles while staying within our planet’s ecological boundaries. We work to increase political leadership, public engagement and innovative solutions to transform cities and ensure their alignment with 1.5°C. We help foster cities that enable all people to thrive within the ecological limits of planet.

We work with business. We help businesses in their decarbonisation journey, in line with science, from the first steps all the way through to the implementation of their climate strategy. We support those with innovative solutions and secure renewable energy to power their business operations. 

We work to influence climate policy. We push governments to implement ambitious climate policies that favour climate-resilient, zero-low-carbon development, energy efficiency, and clean renewable energy for all - and hold them to account. WWF works on key global agreements and forums to create incentives to speed up the global transition to a more sustainable world.

We work on nature, by promoting nature-based solutions. We help develop science-based guidance for field-based interventions, partner with initiatives that boost them, and advocate for policy changes and the increased inclusion of nature-based solutions in countries’ climate pledges.

We work on climate finance, by influencing regulators, insurers, banks, and other financial institutions to help them understand nature’s true value and shift their investments away from fossil fuels and other carbon-intensive projects and help the vulnerable to adapt.

We work in the Arctic, because what happens in the Arctic will influence the rest of our planet. Without urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the world will continue to feel the effects of a warming Arctic. For areas around the world - even thousands of kilometres south of the Arctic - this will mean rising sea levels, changing temperature and precipitation patterns, and more severe weather events.

We work on forests because forest loss and degradation is both a cause and an effect of our changing climate. It’s crucial that action to protect and restore forests is part of the global response to the climate crisis. When forests are destroyed, they release large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Forests are the largest storehouse of carbon after the ocean.

We work on oceans because marine ecosystems can play a vital role in pulling greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and enabling people and nature to adapt and build resilience to the impacts of climate change. To protect and restore our ocean, we need to tackle climate change - and to tackle climate change, we need to protect and restore our ocean

We work on food because rapid action on food system transformation is critical given food systems produce around 33% of global greenhouse gas emissions. We aim to transform food systems so that they have net-zero emissions. With systemic transformation, the food system can become a major part of the solution to the climate crisis.