Climate change is causing measurable welfare harm to animals across wild and domestic contexts through heat stress, habitat loss, extreme weather events, and disruption of seasonal biological processes.
Climate change creates welfare harms at multiple scales. Individual animals experience acute suffering during heat waves, wildfires, and floods - dying from heat exhaustion, smoke inhalation, and drowning. Chronic habitat degradation through drought, sea-level rise, and temperature shift reduces food availability and causes persistent physiological stress. Phenological mismatches - for example, insect emergence happening before bird arrival from migration - create food shortages that compromise breeding success and survival. Farm animal heat stress causes reduced immunity, increased disease, and reproductive failure. Climate action is animal welfare action.