Anthropogenic climate change

Abstract The rapid increase in the Earth’s global temperature in the last decades has drawn the attention of people around the world. The impact of human-induced global warming is becoming increasingly evident, emphasizing the urgent need to take effective measures to mitigate its consequences and secure a sustainable future for our planet. This chapter introduces the causes and consequences of anthropogenic climate change and identifies important trends, biases and gaps in the literature. Moreover, the authors make a call to action and research on climate change and point out the need for collective action that encompasses different actors from different sectors of society in order to protect biodiversity and human wellbeing. In short, climate change, resulting from various human activities, poses a pressing global challenge as it leads to changes in the natural dynamics of the planet in different ways (e.g., frequency of cyclones, severity of heat waves, extreme dry periods, severe storms, rising temperatures of ocean water and melting glaciers), causing significant and detrimental changes to Earth's ecosystems and weather patterns, all of which have direct influence on biodiversity and human life.