State of our climate
Chapter 2 - Society
State of our Climate - Next page: Climate simulator
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Welcome to the State of our climate page
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Key takeaways
- Climate change is really happing
- For millions of years our climate was the result of the earthly conditions prior to the industrial revolution
- Our current climate is the result of the earthly conditions as from the industrial revolution
- Unfortunately, it is impossible to steer a result
- One can only work with the causes that produce the result
- We humans are the cause of global warming and climate change
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Core ideas
As humans, we can only experience the climate through the weather phenomena it produces. Weather is the result of a unique, time- and place-bound situation in Earth's climate. The climate, in turn, is the result of the many physical and biological systems on Earth. As humanity, we have been altering these systems for millennia. Consider the construction of dams on major rivers or deforestation for agriculture. With the advent of fossil fuels during the Industrial Revolution, we also intervened (initially unconsciously, but consciously since the 1980s) in the Earth's atmosphere. The latter leads to the enormous climate change that we have been experiencing firsthand over the past decades.
It remains a persistent misconception that we can directly influence results
For instance, some continue to believe that we can solve the climate crisis through innovations (which merely entail improving existing processes). We cannot directly intervene in a result. We can only bring about change by altering or adjusting the factors that cause the result. Let me give an example from medical practice that you are familiar with, your own health. When you have a fever and take medication for it, it is not the fever-reducing medication that makes you healthy again. It is your own immune system (which you only helped by relieving the fever) that removes the cause and makes you healthy again, provided it is capable of fighting the disease. If this fails, you must go to the doctor or the hospital, who will combat the cause.
We will have to rethink our society (in all it aspects, not al least the economy) within planetary boundaries
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| Planetary Heath Check |
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| Our planet’s vital signs |
| https://www.planetaryhealthcheck.org/ |
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Climate outlook
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Belgium
Cerac aims at creating a future where Belgian citizens, territory and society are safer and more resilient to climate and environment risks.
Evaluate risks
We produce independent risk assessments to evaluate Belgium’s exposure and vulnerability to climate and environment hazards in the middle and long term. Therefore we coordinate and synthesize research and expertise from different stakeholders including government institutions and academics. The Center links these analyses to all aspects of the policies pursued.
Provide information and recommendations
Based on those risk assessments, we provide Belgian policymakers with relevant information and recommendations. This can help them develop policies to anticipate and adapt to climate and environment risks. We report primarily to the National Security Council, with a focus on risks for national security and resilience, and other Federal authorities. Our reports and recommendations will also be available to regional and local policymakers, citizens and other stakeholders.
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| CERAC |
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| Belgian Climate Risk Assessment. |
| https://www.cerac.be/en/bcra |
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European Union
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) supports society by providing authoritative information about the past, present and future climate in Europe and the rest of the World. The C3S mission is to support adaptation and mitigation policies of the European Union by providing consistent and authoritative information about climate change. We offer free and open access to climate data and tools based on the best available science.
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| Copernicus Climate Change Service |
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| The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) supports society by providing authoritative information about the past, present and future climate in Europe and the rest of the World. |
| https://climate.copernicus.eu/ |
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World
WMO is the United Nations system's authoritative voice on the state and behaviour of the Earth's atmosphere, its interaction with the land and oceans, the weather and climate it produces and the resulting distribution of water resources.
As weather, climate and the water cycle know no national boundaries, international cooperation at a global scale is essential for the development of meteorology and operational hydrology as well as to reap the benefits from their application. WMO provides the framework for such international cooperation for its 193 Member States and Territories.
WMO’s mandate relates to the areas of meteorology (weather and climate), operational hydrology and related geophysical sciences. WMO has a powerful role in contributing to the safety and welfare of humanity by fostering collaboration between its Members' National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) and advancing the application of meteorology and hydrology in many societal and economic areas.
WMO regulates and facilitates free and unrestricted exchange of data and information, products, and services in real- or near-real time. This is critical for applications relating to the safety and security of society, social and economic welfare, and the protection of the environment. WMO standards and policies contribute to policy formulation in these areas at national and regional levels.
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| Morld Meteorological Organization |
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| Let us ensure that Earth information is not only collected — but also understood, accessible, and actionable for all. |
| https://wmo.int/ |
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The effect of carbon emissions on our climate & economy
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| Marshall Burke - Quantifying climate loss and damage consistent with a social cost of carbon - Nature - 2026 |
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| Climate change is causing measurable harm globally. Political and legal efforts seek to link these damages with specific emissions, including in discussions of loss and damage (L&D); however, no quantitative definition of L&D exists, nor is there a framework to link past and future emissions from specific sources to monetized, location-specific damages. Here we develop such a framework, which is integrated with recent efforts to estimate the social cost of carbon. Using empirical estimates of the non-linear relationship between temperature and aggregate economic output, we show that future damages from past emissions—one component of L&D—are at least an order of magnitude larger than historical damages from the same emissions. For instance, one tonne of CO2 emitted in 1990 caused US$180 in discounted global damages by 2020 ($40–530) and will cause an additional $1,840 through 2100 ($500–5,700). Thus, settling debts for past damages will not settle debts for past emissions. In other illustrative estimates, a single long-haul flight per year over the past decade leads to about $25k ($6,000–77,000) in future damages by 2100, and US emissions since 1990 caused $500 billion ($180–1,300 billion) of damage in India and $330 billion ($110–820 billion) in Brazil. Carbon removal offers an alternative to transfer payments for settling L&D, but is increasingly ineffective in limiting damages as the delay between emission and recapture increases. |
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10272-6 |
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Global Carbon Budget
The Global Carbon Budget has over 100 contributors from many organisations and countries. It was founded by the Global Carbon Project international science team to track the trends in global carbon emissions and sinks and is a key measure of progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement. It’s widely recognised as the most comprehensive report of its kind. The budget is updated annually and published at the COP meetings every year. .
| Global Carbon Project |
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| The critical annual update revealing the latest trends in global carbon emissions |
| https://globalcarbonbudget.org/ |
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Carbon Majors
Carbon Majors is a database of historical production data from 178 of the world’s largest oil, gas, coal, and cement producers. This data is used to quantify the direct operational emissions and emissions from the combustion of marketed products that can be attributed to these entities.
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| Carbon Majors |
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| The data spans back to 1854 and contains over 1.44 trillion tonnes of CO2e covering 70% of global fossil fuel and cement emissions since the start of the Industrial Revolution in 1751. |
| https://carbonmajors.org/ |
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Climate watch
Climate Watch is an online platform designed to empower policymakers, researchers, media and other stakeholders with the open climate data, visualizations and resources they need to gather insights on national and global progress on climate change. Climate Watch brings together dozens of datasets for the first time to let users analyze and compare the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, access historical emissions data, discover how countries can leverage their climate goals to achieve their sustainable development objectives and use models to map new pathways to a lower carbon, prosperous future. This free platform enables users to create and share custom data visualizations and comparisons of national climate commitments. It contributes to the goals of the Paris Agreement by using open data to increase transparency and accountability and providing actionable analysis on how countries can enhance their efforts to combat climate change.
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| Climate Watch |
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| Climate Watch offers open data, visualizations and analysis to help policymakers, researchers and other stakeholders gather insights on countries' climate progress. |
| https://www.climatewatchdata.org/ |
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Net Zero Tracker
Data regarding the climate ambitions of countries and companies.
| Net Zero Tracker |
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| How are nations doing on net zero targets compared with companies? How many regions and cities have published a plan to get to net zero? How many companies rule out the use of offsets or cover their Scope 3 emissions? |
| https://zerotracker.net/ |
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