In the UK, 11 of the 12 warmest years ever recorded have been in the last 12 years. And many scientists believe that temperatures have gone up by 0.5°c globally in the last 30 years alone.

It might be nice in the UK!  But in 2003, 25,000 people died because a heatwave struck Europe, so hotter weather can cause big problems. And temperatures look set to keep rising.

Scientists believe this change in the climate has also caused a rise in dangerous weather and natural disasters like hurricanes, droughts and floods.

The earth’s atmosphere is made up of gases including carbon dioxide and methane. In certain quantities these help keep the right weather conditions for everything to exist.

These conditions have always varied a little, but since we started burning lots of fossil fuels (like coal to make electricity and petrol to power our cars) the amount of these gases in our atmosphere has gone up a lot. If the quantity of gasses in the atmosphere rises too much then it creates what is sometimes called the 'artificial greenhouse effect' and the climate gets warmer.

Scientists warn that these disasters will get much worse, happen more frequently, and affect more people if we continue to burn so much fossil fuel.

Although it’s rich countries like the USA and the UK that burn the most fossil fuel, it's currently poor countries, like El Salvador and Bangladesh, that are the worst affected by our changing climate. That's just not fair!

The good news is that if we all work together then we can stop climate change getting too bad. We will ALL have to do our bit though!