What is climate change?

Climate refers to the average weather conditions that we have experienced over a long period of time.

The earth's climate is always changing due to a number of reasons, including volcanic eruptions and other natural causes.

What effect is climate change having?

The earth has warmed by around 0.4 degrees centigrade since the 1970s. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have stated that human activity has driven this change in our climate.

What sort of activity is causing climate change?

Gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are also known as greenhouse gases. They already occur naturally in our atmosphere however, we are adding to the levels of these gases through many activities that we underake in our day to day lives.

Greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide, are given off when fossil fuels such as gas, coal and oil are burned for energy.

We are adding to the levels of these gases at an ever increasing rate through our own actions, along with emissions from industry, business and transportation, and the earth cannot cope.

What is the 'greenhouse effect'?

The greenhouse effect occurs naturally. As ultra-violet light from the sun hits the earth, it is reflected back into the atmosphere as infra-red radiation.

Most infra-red radiation escapes from our atmosphere. However, greenhouse gases trap infra-red radiation which means that it is held inside our atmosphere, which leads to a warming effect, or global warming as it is also known.