The social impacts of climate change cause significant harm to the world’s economy and communities. They show up as missed workdays, closed schools, rising food bills and families forced to move. These societal impacts of climate change are steadily increasing in tandem with global temperatures. The last 11 years have been the 11 warmest years on record. As temperatures warm, they translate into real stress in day-to-day life.
What Are the Effects of Climate Change in Our Society?
Climate change reshapes society less through a single headline event and more through a steady shift in risk. As the climate warms, hazards interact with existing pressures such as poverty, ageing populations, weak public services and rapid urban growth. The same storm, heat spell or dry season can produce very different outcomes for different groups.
The IPCC calls this out directly, stressing that climate impacts and losses are already widespread and that vulnerability is uneven. It also highlights the scale of that vulnerability, estimating that 3.3 to 3.6 billion people are highly vulnerable to climate crisis.
That is the core social story: climate change acts like a pressure test for institutions and communities. When risk rises, households lean harder on savings, social networks and public systems. This is why the impacts of changing climate are not only environmental. They also manifest as shifts across multiple aspects of life that can persist long after an acute event.
Livelihoods and Health Pressures
Work is one of the fastest ways climate stress becomes social harm because it hits income and human health at the same time. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that more than 2.4 billion workers are likely to be exposed to excessive heat at some point during their working lives. That exposure carries real risk. The ILO estimates that 18,970 lives are lost each year due to 22.87 million occupational injuries, which are attributable to excessive heat. In countries where outdoor work and informal employment are common, including many parts of Asia, heat can mean fewer safe working hours, lower earnings and tougher trade-offs at home.
Food Production and Food Security
Food security is the next point of pressure, as it combines climate shocks with household purchasing power. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that around 733 million people faced hunger in 2023, and about 2.33 billion experienced moderate or severe food insecurity. When hazards disrupt production or transport, while households also lose income, food prices become a social issue, not just an economic one. Higher temperatures can raise food and headline inflation in the months that follow, a mechanism that helps explain why heat can show up as a cost-of-living squeeze.
Extreme Weather Events Can Break the Basics
Extreme events become social crises when they disrupt the systems people rely on to function day-to-day. For example, sea-level rise and extreme events can cascade into damage to settlements and infrastructure, creating knock-on risks for livelihoods and health, as well as food and water security. In other words, the hazard is rarely the whole story. The severity of the impact depends on whether homes remain habitable and whether power, water and transport continue to work.
Once those basics fail, the effects stack up quickly. Damaged housing forces temporary relocation or overcrowding. Power outages can make cooling unavailable during dangerous heat and can interrupt water pumping and communications. Flooded or damaged roads slow emergency response and cut access to clinics, workplaces and markets. When these failures happen together, recovery takes longer and costs more, especially for households with fewer resources.
Education Disruption as a Measurable Social Impact
Education is one of the clearest indicators of social disruption. UNICEF estimates that at least 242 million students had schooling disrupted by climate hazards in 2024. There are long-term repercussions for students missing school. Often, an individual’s lifetime earning potential declines, and this reduces the country’s total output.
India is a prime example of how multiple hazards can compound across a year. Climate disruptions cause schools to close for several weeks every year. Extreme heat alone causes students to lose about 10% of their academic year.
Displacement and Inequality
Displacement is one of the most visible social impacts of climate change because it reflects a breakdown in safety, housing security and basic services. At the end of 2023, 75.9 million people were living in internal displacement. Of that, 6.6 million people were living in internal displacement directly due to weather-related disasters. Over the past decade, an average of 21.9 million internal displacements have been linked to weather-related hazards each year. Those numbers translate into interrupted schooling, disrupted work and loss of community networks, often hitting the same households repeatedly.
Inequality determines who recovers. The same hazard becomes more damaging when housing is unsafe, savings are thin, work is informal, cooling is unaffordable or health care is hard to access. That is why climate change functions like a pressure test for social protection systems.
How to Reduce Climate Impacts Now and in the Future
Reducing the social impacts of climate change takes both adaptation and mitigation because people need protection now and fewer risks later. For adaptation, early warning systems can be one of the most significant tools. The WMO reports that 119 countries (60%) now have multi-hazard early warning systems, and that disaster mortality is nearly six times lower in countries with more comprehensive systems. On mitigation, the IPCC is blunt: with every increment of warming, impacts and risks become more complex and harder to manage.
Taken together, the evidence points to a clear social reality: climate change is already reshaping well-being and opportunity. The difference between crisis and recovery depends on how quickly societies strengthen protection now, while also reducing the risks still ahead.
Eric Koons
Writer, United States
Eric is a passionate environmental advocate that believes renewable energy is a key piece in meeting the world’s growing energy demands. He received an environmental science degree from the University of California and has worked to promote environmentally and socially sustainable practices since. Eric has worked with leading environmental organisations, such as World Resources Institute and Hitachi ABB Power Grids.
Eric is a passionate environmental advocate that believes renewable energy is a key piece in meeting the world’s growing energy demands. He received an environmental science degree from the University of California and has worked to promote environmentally and socially sustainable practices since. Eric has worked with leading environmental organisations, such as World Resources Institute and Hitachi ABB Power Grids.
