The consequences of climate change will only add to the tensions caused by stark inequalities across the world. In all fairness, imposing any limitations will have the strongest impact on the weakest - those who are yet to get their industry off the ground and improve the lives of their citizens. They need to be given an opportunity to grow.

So ocean acidification for folks that work in, for example, fishing industries, storms for anybody that lives along the coast, sea level rise for folks that live along the coast as well and heat, which is pretty much everybody. So I think to think that anyone is immune to the impacts of climate change is delusional.

All change is disruptive. We have seen that the specter of terrorism is enough to cast stable democracies into turmoil. Climate change will have even more dramatic consequences. Men and women will be thrown back upon the resources of the state. They will look to their political leaders and representatives to protect them: open societies will once again be urged to close in upon themselves, sacrificing freedom for ‘security’. The choice will no longer be between the state and the market, but between two sorts of state. It is thus incumbent upon us to re-conceive the role of government. If we do not, others will.

Climate change" affects more than just a change in the weather; it refers to seasonal changes over a long period of time

We are already facing growing catastrophes due to climate change. It is too late to avoid soaring temperatures, scarce water, and extreme weather. That ship has in many ways already sailed. The earth is going to be much less hospitable to human beings in the future.

We’ve got to find a way to make the world work for everyone. Climate change is an issue that impacts [sic] that greatly by making it harder for people to live where they live, by causing disruptions, and lack of resources.

For us, climate change is primarily a water crisis,” she said. “Our people can feel its impacts in their daily lives, each year through worsening floods, rising sea levels, and severe drought.

If we do not cut emissions, we face even more devastating consequences, as unchecked they could raise global average temperature to 4C or more above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. The shift to such a world could cause mass migrations of hundreds of millions of people away from the worst-affected areas. That would lead to conflict and war, not peace and prosperity. … We also underestimated the potential importance of strong feedbacks, such as the thawing of the permafrost to release methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, as well as tipping points beyond which some changes in the climate may become effectively irreversible.

Climate change is already impacting every inhabited part of our planet.

Climate change is one of the most dangerous crises mankind has experienced in this century, impacting our lives

If we let climate change continue unabated, it will affect the most vulnerable first.

The expected effects of a sea-level rise typify the many consequences of a global warming. On the one hand, they are so big we literally can't understand them. If there is a significant polar melting, the Earth's center of gravity will shift, tipping the globe in such a way that the sea level might actually drop at Cape Horn and along the coast of Iceland—I read this in a recent EPA report and found that I didn't really understand what it meant to tip the Earth, through I was awed by the idea. On the other hand, the changes ultimately acquire a quite personal dimension: Should I put in a wall in front of my house? Does this taste salty to you? And, most telling of all, the human response to the problems, the utterly natural human attempt to preserve the old natural way of life in this postnatural world, creates entirely new consequences. The ocean rises; I build a wall; the marsh dies, and, with it, the fish.

If we keep on with business as usual, the Earth will be warmed more every year; drought and floods both will be endemic; many more cities, provinces, and whole nations will be submerged beneath the waves—unless heroic worldwide engineering countermeasures are taken. In the longer run, still more dire consequences may follow, including the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, its surge into the sea, a major global rise in sea level, and the inundation of almost all the coastal cities on the planet.

I think that people are aware of the potential impacts of climate change on Arctic species. You know, everyone has seen the pictures of the poor polar bears, you know, as the sea ice shrinks. But really, where climate change could have an even more devastating impact is in the tropics, both because most species live in the tropics—that’s just where the abundance of life is—and also because these species tend to have a very, very narrow tolerance for climatic change. They’re used to a lot of climatic stability.