How climate change is creating new welfare threats for animals globally, from heat stress in livestock to habitat loss in wild populations, and what mitigation and adaptation can achieve.
Climate change creates welfare threats to animals across virtually every ecosystem and production system. In wild populations, the welfare consequences of habitat change include nutritional stress from phenological mismatches, heat exposure exceeding thermal tolerance, and forced movement into new areas where animals lack adaptations and knowledge. In farming systems, heat stress causes measurable suffering in animals not adapted to warming temperatures — this is a current, ongoing welfare problem, not a future concern. The welfare response to climate change must operate at multiple levels: mitigation to limit warming, adaptation of farming systems to protect animals from heat stress, and conservation of habitat connectivity that allows wild populations to track shifting conditions.