Climate change is creating new and intensifying existing welfare challenges for both wild and farmed animals. Proactive welfare planning for climate adaptation is an emerging policy priority.
Climate change affects animal welfare through multiple intersecting pathways: direct thermal stress in farmed and urban animals, habitat loss and forced migration in wild species, altered disease distribution, changed food availability, and increased frequency of extreme weather events. Effective climate adaptation planning for animal welfare requires integrating welfare considerations into climate policy — ensuring, for example, that increased droughts trigger welfare monitoring for wild herbivores, that livestock heat stress is addressed through building design and breed selection, and that marine welfare is considered in ocean management frameworks. Animal welfare cannot be treated as a separate domain from climate adaptation.