There is an overwhelming amount of information about climate change online, and finding reliable sources can be a challenge. So, we’ve identified some of the best and most authoritative sources of climate change information below, as well as a number of reputable, free, online climate change courses. Take a look at these before deciding whether you need to pay for ours.

The image above shows a visualisation of global mean surface temperature from 1850-2019, and is a great example of some of the visualisations available from the sources below, in this case Climate Lab Book.

This page will be updated periodically. Please feel free to suggest any additions.

News and journalism

Carbon Brief: News on climate science, policy, mitigation and other aspects of climate change, alo with detailed long articles addressing key technical issues.

Climate Home News: Key climate change news stories in an easily digestible style.

Drilled podcast: In-depth investigation of the financial and political forces seeking to prevent action on climate change.

International bodies and regular reports

Global Carbon Project: Greenhouse gas emissions and trends, and the annual Global Carbon Budget report.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): Regular Assessment Reports and other reports, downloadable by chapter.

World Meteorological Organisation (WMO): Information and updates on key aspects of weather and climate, including annual ‘State of the Climate’ report.

Data, visualisation and key information

Global

2° Institute: Established by the US Clean Air Society, with interactive climate graphics intended to improve public understanding of climate change, including data/graphics on global temperature, CO₂ and other greenhouse gas concentrations, and sea-level.

Carbon Brief projected warming map: Historical warming and projected warming ranges for the world, by grid squares approximately 100km x 100km.

Climate Central Seal-Level Rise Maps and Tools: Visulisations of sea-level rise impacts and flood risk by elevation, year, water level and other metrics.

Climate Lab Book: ‘Open source’ climate science and powerful visualisations.

Climate Information Platform: climate observations and projections for African regions and stations. Developed by the University of Cape Town.

NASA Global Climate Change: Information, resources, and NASA’s Climate Time Machine – a series of interactive map showing the evolution of temperature, CO₂, sea-leve and sea-ice over the recent historical period.

NOAA Climate.gov: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with a focus on the US but with a Global Climate Dashboard showing graphs of key datasets relating to climate change and variability, and various other useful resources.

Our World in Data: Data on a wide range of topics including energy, environment and climate.

TEAL Tool: developed by the World Energy & Meteorology Council, this tool allows you to generate graphics and data for observed temperature, precipitation, wind speed and solar irradiation since 1980, for different parts of the world (national and sub-national scale), at annual, seasonal and monthly timescales.

World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal: Observational data and climate projections aggregated at the country level, and other information organised by country and sector.

UK

UK Climate Projections: from the Met office, including slide sets, infographics, factsheets, reports, and the ‘What will climate change look like near me‘ interactive visualisation tool.

UK Drought Tool: from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. Interactive map tool with historical monthly precipitation anomlies by catchment.

Online courses

The following courses are free, although in some cases this means you can only view course materials and cannot undertake exercises, interact with trainers or obtain a certificate. Check to see what is included in the free package and whether there are any additional costs associated with the full course experience. This list is far from exhaustive. You can find another, similar list on the Youth Climate Leaders website here. Coursera also lists many more climate change courses, and it’s worth searching for ‘climate change’ on their website to see what comes up.

Climate Adaptation in Africa: University of Cape Town via Coursera. Vulnerability, development and adaptation explored in the context of water, agriculture, ecosystems and cities, with a final module on adaptation planning.

Climate Change Mitigation in Developing Countries: University of Cape Town via Coursera. Includes content on energy modelling, scenario building, innovation, policy making and facilitation.

Climate Change: The Science an Global Impact: Free course offered by EdX and SDG Academy, delivered by leading climate scientist Michael Mann and focusing on climate science.

EdX Climate Change Courses: A range of courses covering climate change science, impacts, mitigation, negotiations, law and education, as well as renewable energy and climate change implications for different sectors such as agriculture, water, tourism and finance.

Future Learn Climate Change Collection: Climate science, energy, sustainability and related courses

Open University Climate Change course: An introduction to climate science.

Planning for Climate Change in African Cities: Erasmus University via Coursera. Impacts, risks and vulnerabilities, adaptation and resilience, and mitigation and adaptation planning.

UN CC:e-Learn: Courses on climate change, green economy and sustainability, including climate change and health, climate change and children, National Adaptation Plans, climate information, climate policy, mitigation mechanism and other aspects of climate change.

World Bank Climate Change Online Learning: A collection of learning videos organised by topic and region.