Climate change is such an important issue that the United Nations has  assembled a huge panel of thousands of climate experts from around the world. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides the world?s governments with predictions on what will happen and what needs to be done now to prevent climate change causing catastrophic problems for our planet in the future. The latest IPCC Report, published in 2014, provides almost total agreement that humans are causing climate change.

The Report states that our actions are warming the oceans and atmosphere, sea levels are rising as snow cover melts along with Arctic sea ice, which will threaten coastal areas and low-lying communities and cities. As oceans absorb  more and more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, they are becoming more acidic, which will cause loss of coral and big changes for many marine species. Extreme weather like storms, heavy rainfall, droughts and heat waves are very likely to increase. Unless action is taken, we may not be able to grow enough food to feed everyone and a lack of water in some areas may cause mass migration and even wars.

Even with action, because the world?s fireplace is already burning, we will still need to adapt to some of the changes to climate that are already unavoidable.

While extreme weather seems to be in the news all the time, a study by independent scholar Indur Goklany has found that in fact the number of human deaths from floods, droughts and storms has dropped by 98% since the 1920s. He argues that this is not because the weather events are any less dangerous, it?s because we are much better at forecasting, giving people time to get out of the way before the bad weather hits and because we are investing more as a species in better protection against storms, floods and droughts. As countries become steadily richer, he believes protection against extreme weather will continue to improve too.

Those adaptations are being seen by some as an opportunity to make the world a more robust and secure place for our future. As Dr Chris Field said ?If we?re dumb, it?s a serious, serious problem and if we are smart it?s a serious problem, but one that we can manage?.