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Why Carbon Dioxide Causes Climate Change

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is a natural part of the atmosphere, but human activities - like burning coal, oil, and gas — are adding far more than the Earth can handle. CO₂ traps heat from the sun, acting like a thickening blanket around the planet.

Normally, some of the sun’s energy escapes back into space. But with too much CO₂, more heat stays in our atmosphere. This extra warmth causes the Earth’s climate to change in noticeable ways.

We’re seeing more extreme weather — longer heatwaves, stronger storms, heavier rainfall, and more intense droughts. Ice at the poles is melting faster, raising sea levels and threatening coastal communities. Wildlife is struggling to adapt, and farming is becoming harder in many regions due to shifting weather patterns.

In short, too much CO₂ traps heat and disrupts the balance of our climate — affecting nature, people, and the places we all depend on.

What is different about Carbon Dioxide?

Some gases have the ability to absorb heat and some do not. If you have glass jar full of Carbon Dioxide and put it in front of a radiant heater (electric heater), you would find that most of the heat radiating from the heater would pass through the jar, but some would be absorbed by the carbon dioxide, so the gas in the jar would warm up.

If you replaced the gas in the jar with either Nitrogen or Oxygen, (the two most abundant gases in the atmosphere) they would not warm up, because these gases do not absorb radiant heat, it just passes straight through.

This behaviour is a fundamental characteristic of each gas and can directly be measured in a laboratory.

This is the reason that Carbon Dioxide acts as a blanket on the planet. If the atmosphere were just Oxygen and Nitrogen, heat radiating from the surface of the earth would just head out to space and dissipate. If there is some Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, some of this heat is absorbed by the atmosphere, warming the atmosphere.

Why Renewable Energy Must Do More Than Replace Fossil Fuels

Switching to renewable energy — like wind, solar, and hydro — is essential to cut carbon emissions from power stations. But that’s just the beginning.

To truly tackle climate change, renewable energy must also power the next generation of cleaner technologies. That includes electric vehicles to replace petrol and diesel cars, heat pumps to replace gas boilers in homes, and the growing demand from data centres and digital infrastructure.

As we shift more of our lives - transport, heating, industry - onto clean electricity, the need for low-carbon power grows. So renewables must not only replace today’s fossil fuel energy, but also expand to meet the rising demand of a decarbonised future.