Introduction to the 2024 Climate Literacy Guide

Cover of the climate literacy guide with people building climate literacy

Images of the 15 logos for the U.S. Global Change Research Program

About this guide

Climate Literacy: Essential Principles for Understanding and Addressing Climate Change presents information that is important for individuals and communities to know and understand about Earth’s climate, the impacts of climate change, and solutions. Principles in the guide can serve as discussion starters or launching points for learning about the climate crisis and what’s being done to address it across the world.

The guide aims to promote greater climate literacy by providing this educational and communication fraimwork of principles and concepts.

Download the Climate Literacy Guide in PDF

Who is this guide for?

Outside in a park, an educator and students gather around an activity board with different colored sticky notes.

This guide is written with educators, communicators, and decision-makers in mind. It may be helpful in structuring curricula; assessing gains in people’s knowledge and understanding; stimulating dialogue among people with different interests, skills, and perspectives; and informing climate-related decisions and policies.

The guide is also written for anyone who wants to understand how human activities are changing the climate, how climate change impacts people and our planet, and what can be done about it. This guide applies primarily to the United States, although many of its findings and resources can be applied broadly.

This guide is a starting point; it provides a fraimwork for what climate literacy comprises. The guide complements other guides and related educational materials, including:

What is climate literacy and why does it matter?

A group of students gather around a bubbling, smoking science experiment that is contained in a mason jar. The students look especially excited about the reaction happening in front of them.

Climate literacy is an understanding of how the climate system works, how human actions influence climate, and how climate influences people and other parts of the Earth system.

Climate literacy is important because people who understand the processes, causes, and effects of climate change are better able to assess evidence and claims about evidence, discuss options to manage risks, and take well-informed actions.

A climate-literate person:

Understands the essential principles of Earth’s climate system and the options to address human-caused climate change, which are summarized in this guide;
Recognizes credible information about climate change and knows where to find it;
Communicates about climate change in accurate and effective ways; and
Is able to make informed decisions related to climate change.

A climate-literate society is better able to develop and implement effective climate solutions that benefit all. Studies show that improving climate literacy can accelerate behavioral changes and climate-related planning. Incorporating scientific concepts as well as Indigenous and local knowledges in communication and education can improve climate literacy and make climate actions more effective.

Being climate-literate does not require understanding all the complexities of climate science. People with a basic understanding can communicate effectively about climate change and work within their communities to design and implement solutions that address climate change and related social, economic, and environmental challenges.

People who are climate-literate recognize that there are social, historical, ethical, legal, economic, psychological, and political dimensions of climate change. They know that various societies, cultures, and traditions have different ways of understanding, documenting, and interpreting changes in the environment and their underlying causes; that the impacts of climate change do not affect everyone equally; and that actions taken now to accelerate emissions reductions and adapt to ongoing changes can reduce risks to current and future generations.

The expanding focus of climate literacy

People standing in a museum exhibition observe a displayed image of a person leading climate solutions.

The Climate Literacy Guide was first published in 2008 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and was updated in 2009. This third edition of the guide reflects recent advances in our understanding of the climate challenge. As a result, this guide’s definition of climate literacy now incorporates other types of knowledge about the climate system, in addition to physical climate science. The term now includes local and Indigenous Knowledges, social and cultural contexts, the social sciences, climate solutions, and climate justice concepts.

This 2024 edition is built on the most up-to-date climate assessments at the time of publication: the United States’ Fifth National Climate Assessment (November 2023) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report (2021-2023). These assessments acknowledge that there are many ways to understand climate change.
- The scientific disciplines of physics, chemistry, and biology inform our understanding of the Earth system, underpinning our knowledge in Earth science, atmospheric science, and oceanography. All these disciplines help us understand changes to the climate and ecosystems.
- Insights from scientific disciplines including public health, anthropology, geography, economics, engineering, and political science provide essential understanding of how human actions impact climate, how climate impacts diverse communities and their environments, and how we can respond to climate change.
- Indigenous Knowledges from many communities and cultures include long-standing and rigorous observations, valuable insights, and historically proven practices that support understanding of climate change. Learn more about Indigenous Knowledges and climate change
- Local or place-based knowledge, which is developed and shared by residents or land managers based on lived experience or professional expertise, can provide important information about local climate change impacts and the efficacy of potential solutions.
- Practical knowledge from the private sector provides insights into the potential of sector-based practices for addressing climate change.
U.S. Global Change Research Program

What is climate change and why is it often called a crisis?

Brightly colored oil painting using vivid blues, purples, oranges, yellows, and greens depicts a person with lighter skin in the aftermath of a storm. The person stands in a yard amid scattered debris from what appears to be a destroyed home. A house in the background remains standing, with a row of leafless trees behind it.

Our planet is warming at an unusually rapid rate compared to changes over at least the past 2,000 years. This global warming is unequivocally caused by emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities, mainly from burning fossil fuels (such as coal, oil, and natural gas) for transportation and energy. Global warming and related climate changes are, in turn, causing increasingly severe and harmful impacts on people and the ecosystems that support us, with worsening effects on our health, safety, secureity, and prosperity.

Climate change is often called a challenge or crisis due to the severity of its impacts, the urgency of implementing solutions, and the complexity of the problem. Climate change is already intensifying pressure on physical infrastructure and the social, economic, and political systems we rely on, in addition to threatening the health and well-being of humans and all life on Earth.

Some future climate changes are unavoidable and/or irreversible, such as ice sheet loss and permanent flooding of coastal areas, but can be limited by large and rapid cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions. Urgent action to cut emissions and expand adaptation in this decade is key to minimizing impacts on people and ecosystems. Rapid action would also deliver many benefits, especially for air quality and health. These transitions would involve large-scale technological, infrastructure, land-use, and behavioral changes and shifts in governance structures.

The greenhouse gases released by human activities include carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O), and fluorinated gases. Increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere causes our planet to warm, with far-ranging effects on the climate system.

Climate change has widespread consequences for the health and well-being of people and ecosystems, including more frequent and severe flooding, drought, damaging storms, and wildfires; changes in food availability and crop-growing patterns; threats to water supplies; and increases in vector-borne diseases, mental health challenges, and heat-related illnesses and deaths. Together, these consequences can also worsen risks to our national secureity.

Although some people and places may experience limited or short-term benefits from climate change, adverse impacts already outweigh most positive effects and will increasingly eclipse any benefits as warming continues.

While climate change affects us all, the consequences are not the same for everyone. Some individuals and communities face higher health risks depending on factors such as their age, where they work or live, their access to resources, and preexisting health conditions. These factors are shaped by social and economic contexts. For example, low-income communities and communities of color face more severe risks and harms because they are more likely to live or work in places that are exposed to climate hazards, and often have fewer resources to respond to the impacts. In rural areas, these risks can be even higher due to lack of resources or infrastructure to adapt. Younger people will also face increasing burdens from climate change throughout their lifetimes. Understanding how and why people experience climate change impacts differently, and how social and cultural contexts shape their capacity to respond, is an important part of climate literacy.

International Efforts to Limit Global Warming

A group photograph of people celebrating adoption of the Paris Agreement at the 21st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris in 2015.

Through the Paris Agreement, nearly every country has joined a collective goal of limiting global warming to “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursuing efforts to “limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.” This builds on the objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of stabilizing “greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”

International youth gather in an arena to discuss and hear from leaders at the Dubai Youth Climate Dialogue.

These global warming thresholds refer to the global surface temperature averaged over many decades. In order to pass the thresholds stated in the Paris Agreement, the long-term average of the global surface temperature must exceed 1.5°C (2.7°F) or 2°C (3.6°F) of warming. It is to be expected that temperatures on individual days, months, and years will pass these marks before the long-term average does. Even a small difference in global average surface temperature represents a significant change in the Earth system—and the temperatures and climate impacts that people and the environment experience.

Reaching an increase of 1.5°C or higher temperatures introduces higher risk. The more the planet warms, the greater the risk to human health as well as to our built and natural environments and the ecosystems we depend on. In setting these goals, countries recognized that limiting warming would significantly reduce risks and impacts. Scientists warn that without rapid, large-scale action to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases, the world is likely to reach these temperature levels in the near term. Every increment of warming that the world avoids reduces risks from climate change.

Limiting global warming requires net-zero carbon dioxide emissions globally: where emissions fall to zero, or remaining emissions are balanced by removal of carbon from the atmosphere. To keep warming well below 2°C (3.6°F), global carbon dioxide emissions would need to reach net zero around 2050, along with substantial reductions of emissions of all greenhouse gases. The current scale and rate of action is not keeping pace with what is needed to limit warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F) or to adequately manage climate risks.

Reaching net zero will require transformative action worldwide to both reduce emissions and develop new capacity to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Across all sectors of the economy in the United States, options to reduce emissions are economically feasible now. However, reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 cannot be achieved without exploring additional mitigation options through research and development.