As temperatures rise and climate change impacts intensify, nations must urgently step up action to adapt to the new climate reality or face serious costs, damages and losses, a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report finds.

Climate change impacts the health of every person, animal, plant, a body of water and soil type.

2020 was a year of extreme weather around the world. Hot and dry conditions drove record-setting wildfires through vast areas of Australia, California and Brazil and Siberia.

In all the discussions about climate change, one thing is often overlooked – the upper atmosphere of Earth is actually cooling while the lower atmosphere grows warmer, and this strange paradox is a clear fingerprint of greenhouse gases at work.

Agriculture – including crops, livestock, fisheries, aquaculture and forestry – absorbs around 26 percent of the total damage and losses of climate-related natural disasters, such as droughts and floods, in the developing world.

2020 was a year of unremitting extreme climate events, from heat waves to wildfires to hurricanes, many of which scientists have directly linked to human-caused climate change .