Climate change is already affecting animal welfare through heat stress, drought, flooding, disease spread and habitat disruption. Preparing farm systems, wildlife management and conservation for a warmer world is an urgent welfare priority.
Climate change is a welfare multiplier — it intensifies existing welfare problems and creates new ones at a scale that overwhelms individual welfare interventions. Responding to this challenge requires system-level change: farm system adaptation through shade, ventilation, breed selection and altered management; conservation system adaptation through landscape connectivity and climate refugia; and disease surveillance systems that respond to range-shifting pathogens. Animal welfare organisations increasingly integrate climate adaptation into their work, recognising that climate change is one of the largest emerging threats to animal welfare at scale.