Climate change is the biggest environmental challenge facing the world today.

Though changes in the climate have occurred naturally in the past, human activity is the cause of the current climate changes, through increased emissions of greenhouse gases.

Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides and water vapour occur naturally in the atmosphere. However human activities such as burning fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil), agriculture and deforestation, cause these gases to build up in the atmosphere and the temperature to rise. There is a huge body of evidence to support this, especially from the IPCC – a renowned group of scientists from all the major nations in the world.

Though climate change is a global problem, with changes in greenhouse gases anywhere in the world affecting the global climate system as a whole, it is a problem that needs to be tackled at all levels. The effects of climate changes have major variations in different parts of the world. In Cambridgeshire climate change will bring hotter, drier summers; warmer, wetter winters; more storms and downpours; and rising sea-levels.