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Concept
Scientific consensus on climate change
Summary
There is a strong scientific consensus that the Earth is warming and that this warming is mainly caused by human activities. This consensus is supported by various studies of scientists' opinions and by position statements of scientific organizations, many of which explicitly agree with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) synthesis reports.
Nearly all actively publishing climate scientists say humans are causing climate change. Surveys of the scientific literature are another way to measure scientific consensus. A 2019 review of scientific papers found the consensus on the cause of climate change to be at 100%, and a 2021 study concluded that over 99% of scientific papers agree on the human cause of climate change. The small percentage of papers that disagreed with the consensus often contain errors or cannot be replicated.
The current scientific consensus is that:
Earth's climate has warmed significantly since the late 1800s.
Human activities (primarily greenhouse gas emissions) are the primary cause.
Continuing emissions will increase the likelihood and severity of global effects.
People and nations can act individually and collectively to slow the pace of global warming, while also preparing for unavoidable climate change and its consequences.
Several studies of the consensus have been undertaken. Among the most cited is a 2013 study of nearly 12,000 abstracts of peer-reviewed papers on climate science published since 1990, of which just over 4,000 papers expressed an opinion on the cause of recent global warming. Of these, 97% agree, explicitly or implicitly, that global warming is happening and is human-caused. It is "extremely likely" that this warming arises from "human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere. Natural change alone would have had a slight cooling effect rather than a warming effect.
This scientific opinion is expressed in synthesis reports, by scientific bodies of national or international standing, and by surveys of opinion among climate scientists.
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