Climate change is marked by global temperature increases, results in drastic weather shifts, glacier melting and sea level rise.
Inspiring meaningful action towards mitigating climate change is a challenging task, but some activists, politicians and celebrities have successfully captured the urgency and importance of the issue.
A compilation of poignant quotes about climate change seeks to spur action and foster a sense of responsibility for a better future.
These thought-provoking climate change quotes will help to ignite passion, encourage changes and serve as a call to action to combat the global climate crisis.
Top 10 Climate Change Quotes
Men argue. Nature acts. ~ Voltaire.
When the well is dry, we know the worth of water. ~ Benjamin Franklin.
We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to. ~ Terri Swearingen.
The Earth is a fine place and worth fighting for. ~ Ernest Hemingway.
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed. ~ Mahatma Gandhi.
The Earth is in a death spiral. It will take radical action to save us. ~ George Monbiot.
I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is. ~ Greta Thunberg.
Climate change is a terrible problem, and it absolutely needs to be solved. It deserves to be a huge priority. ~ Bill Gates.
We are running out of time, and we must have a planetary solution to a planetary crisis. ~ Al Gore.
We have a single mission: to protect and hand on the planet to the next generation. ~ François Hollande.
Best Climate Change Quotes
Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us. ~ Bill Nye.
Climate change does not respect border; it does not respect who you are – rich and poor, small and big. Therefore, this is what we call ‘global challenges,’ which require global solidarity. ~ Ban Ki-moon.
All things share the same breath – the beast, the tree, the man. The air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. ~ Chief Seattle.
I hold a vision of this blue green planet, safe and in balance. At the end of the Fossil Fuel Era, we are emerging to a new reality. We are ready to make the next leap – as momentous as abolishing slavery or giving women the vote. ~ Elizabeth May.
We cannot burn our way to the future. We cannot pretend the danger does not exist – or dismiss it because it affects someone else. ~ Ban Ki-moon.
Wind and other clean, renewable energy will help end our reliance on fossil fuels and combat the severe threat that climate change poses to humans and wildlife alike. ~ Frances Beinecke.
I’m often asked whether I believe in global warming. I now just reply with the question: Do you believe in gravity? ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The clear and present danger of climate change means we cannot burn our way to prosperity. We already rely too heavily on fossil fuels and we need to find a new, sustainable path to the future we want. We need a clean industrial revolution. ~ Ban Ki-moon.
This is not a partisan debate; it is a human one. Clean air and water, and a livable climate are inalienable human rights. And solving this crisis is not a question of politics. It is our moral obligation. ~ Leonardo DiCaprio.
We are all living together on a single planet, which is threatened by our own actions. And if you don’t have some kind of global cooperation, nationalism is just not on the right level to tackle the problems, whether it’s climate change or whether it’s technological disruption. ~ Yuval Noah Harari.
Climate change isn’t something in the future. That narrative is fundamentally flawed because there are millions impacted and so many displaced already. That is the new inconvenient truth that no one wants to hear. ~ Aneesa Khan.
The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything. ~ Albert Einstein.
We can’t take climate change and put it on the back burner. If we don’t address climate change, we won’t be around as humans. ~ Conrad Anker.
Famous Climate Change Quotes
Climate change is the greatest threat to our existence in our short history on this planet. Nobody’s going to buy their way out of its effects. ~ Mark Ruffalo.
The climate is changing. The proper political debate would be how to deal with these risks. ~ Steven Chu.
A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis. It is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences. ~ Al Gore.
First life, then spaces, then buildings – the other way around never works. ~ Jan Gehl.
I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems. I believe mankind has looked at climate change in the same way, as if it were fiction. ~ Leonardo DiCaprio.
Popular Climate Change Quotes
One of the biggest obstacles to making a start on climate change is that it has become a cliché before it has even been understood. ~ Tim Flannery.
There’s one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other, and that is the urgent threat of a changing climate. ~ Barack Obama.
We must face up to an inescapable reality: the challenges of sustainability simply overwhelm the adequacy of our responses. With some honorable exceptions, our responses are too few, too little, and too late. ~ Kofi A. Annan.
This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you! ~ Greta Thunberg.
I have long understood that climate change is not only an environmental issue – it is a humanitarian, economic, health, and justice issue as well. ~ Frances Beinecke.
We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change, and we are the last generation that can do something about it. ~ Jay Inslee.
On climate change, we often don’t fully appreciate that it is a problem. We think it is a problem waiting to happen. ~ Kofi Annan.
It’s not climate change that needs to be tackled. It is the political power of the fossil fuel industry. ~ Richard Denniss.
Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth… these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security, and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all. ~ Ban Ki-moon.
Powerful Climate Change Quotes
Climate change is sometimes misunderstood as being about changes in the weather. In reality, it is about changes in our very way of life. ~ Paul Polman.
If you don’t act against climate change, then no matter how much money you leave for your children, it’ll not even cover their healthcare bills, due to living in an unhealthy planet. ~ Abhijit Naskar.
There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point is what part humans are playing in it. ~ David Attenborough.
People of conscience need to break their ties with corporations financing the injustice of climate change. ~ Desmond Tutu.
As human beings, we are vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable. In our everyday experience, if something has never happened before, we are generally safe in assuming it is not going to happen in the future, but the exceptions can kill you, and climate change is one of those exceptions. ~ Al Gore.
We are running the most dangerous experiment in history right now, which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe. ~ Elon Musk.
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Thought-Provoking Climate Change Quotes
We don’t have time to sit on our hands as our planet burns. For young people, climate change is bigger than election or re-election. It’s life or death. ~ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it’s common sense. ~ Ronald Reagan.
While the problem can sometimes seem overwhelming, we can turn things around – but we must move beyond climate talk to climate action. ~ Ted Turner.
By polluting the oceans, not mitigating CO2 emissions and destroying our biodiversity, we are killing our planet. Let us face it, there is no planet B. ~ Emmanuel Macron.
At present, we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. ~ Paul Hawken.
One thing leads to the other. Deforestation leads to climate change, which leads to ecosystem losses, which negatively impacts our livelihoods – it’s a vicious cycle. ~ Gisele Bundchen.
We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. ~ Native American Proverb.
The future will be green or not at all. ~ Jonathon Porritt.
Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bite you consume. Everyone, everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea. ~ Sylvia Earle.
Profound Climate Change Quotes
The time is past when humankind thought it could selfishly draw on exhaustible resources. We know now the world is not a commodity, is not a source of revenue; it’s a common good, it’s our heritage. And the consequences of climate change are fully known now – we’re not talking about theories anymore, we’re talking about certainties. ~ François Hollande.
We must now agree on a binding review mechanism under international law, so that this century can credibly be called a century of decarbonization. ~ Angela Merkel.
The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say – we will never forgive you. ~ Greta Thunberg.
Climate change, in some regions, has aggravated conflict over scarce land, and could well trigger large-scale migration in the decades ahead. And rising sea levels put at risk the very survival of all small island states. These and other implications for peace and security have implications for the United Nations itself. ~ Ban Ki-moon.
Climate change, if unchecked, is an urgent threat to health, food supplies, biodiversity, and livelihoods across the globe. ~ John F. Kerry.
The world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more conflict for decades. ~ Barack Obama.
We cannot compromise with the earth; we cannot compromise with the catastrophe of unchecked climate change, so we must compromise with one another. ~ Gordon Brown.
Meaningful Climate Change Quotes
Climate change is destroying our path to sustainability. Ours is a world of looming challenges and increasingly limited resources. Sustainable development offers the best chance to adjust our course. ~ Ban Ki-moon.
The environment is where we all meet; where all of us have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share. ~ Lady Bird Johnson.
You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. ~ Jane Goodall.
Climate change isn’t an ‘issue’ to add to the list of things to worry about, next to health care and taxes. It is a civilizational wake-up call. A powerful message – spoken in the language of fires, floods, droughts, and extinctions – telling us that we need an entirely new economic model and a new way of sharing this planet. Telling us we need to evolve. ~ Naomi Klein.
Anybody who doesn’t see the impact of climate change is really, and I would say, myopic. They don’t see the reality. It’s so evident that we are destroying Mother Earth. This is not the problem of one country or a few countries: it is the problem of mankind. We need to work together to stop this. Otherwise, our future generations will simply disappear. ~ Juan Manuel Santos.
Global warming is too serious for the world any longer to ignore its danger or split into opposing factions on it. ~ Tony Blair.
Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse. ~ Desmond Tutu.
If you really think that the environment is less important than the economy, try holding your breath while you count your money. ~ Guy McPherson.
Let’s double down on solar energy, let’s be more energy-efficient, let’s weatherize our homes. We can build a better, healthier economy based on good-paying, clean energy jobs. ~ Ian Somerhalder.
Wise Climate Change Quotes
Climate change is a global problem. The planet is warming because of the growing level of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. If this trend continues, truly catastrophic consequences are likely to ensue from rising sea levels to reduced water availability, to more heat waves and fires. ~ Malcolm Turnbull.
By the time we see that climate change is really bad, your ability to fix it is extremely limited… The carbon gets up there, but the heating effect is delayed. And then the effect of that heat on the species and ecosystem is delayed. That means that even when you turn virtuous, things are actually going to get worse for quite a while. ~ Bill Gates.
If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us. ~ David Suzuki.
Climate change is the environmental challenge of this generation, and it is imperative that we act before it’s too late. ~ John Delaney.
The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact. ~ Barack Obama.
Climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism. ~ David King.
The cost of our success is the exhaustion of natural resources, leading to energy crises, climate change, pollution, and the destruction of our habitat. If you exhaust natural resources, there will be nothing left for your children. If we continue in the same direction, humankind is headed for some frightful ordeals, if not extinction. ~ Christian de Duve.
So these were the 75 quotes about Climate Change.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read our other posts on Fly High quotes and Bad Leadership quotes.
