Climate change is creating new welfare challenges for farmed animals, wildlife and companion animals. Understanding these impacts helps build welfare considerations into climate adaptation planning.
Climate change is not primarily an animal welfare issue in the discourse, but it is profoundly an animal welfare issue in impact. Billions of animals are experiencing increased suffering from heat stress, disease, habitat disruption and extreme weather events. The welfare case for ambitious climate action is therefore not only about human wellbeing but about the immense animal suffering that continued warming will cause. Within climate adaptation planning, animal welfare is rarely explicitly considered - livestock cooling systems, wildlife corridor design and companion animal heatstroke prevention are rarely integrated into national adaptation frameworks. This gap needs to be filled.