Climate Change
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96 free Climate Change trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
50 free climate change trivia questions with answers. Think you know everything about climate change? Put your environmental knowledge to the test with our comprehensive climate change trivia quiz. From greenhouse gases to renewable energy, discover how much you really understand about one of the world's most pressing issues.
30 of 96 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which greenhouse gas is the most abundant in Earth's atmosphere by average mole fraction?
Water Vapor
Water vapor averages a few tenths of a percent of the atmosphere, roughly ten times CO2's 0.04%, but its level is set by temperature rather than emissions, so it amplifies warming instead of driving it.
Q 02Which 1997 treaty committed industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol was an international agreement adopted in 1997, legally binding developed countries to emission reduction targets. It represented a significant step in international climate policy.
Q 03At which Hawaiian observatory has CO2 been measured continuously since 1958, producing the Keeling Curve?
Mauna Loa
Charles David Keeling began the measurements at Mauna Loa in 1958; on 9 May 2013 the observatory's daily mean CO2 passed 400 parts per million for the first time.
Q 04What is the largest human activity contributing to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels?
Burning Fossil Fuels
The combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) for energy, transportation, and industrial processes is the predominant human activity leading to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Q 05What natural process has atmospheric gases trap heat and warm Earth's surface?
Greenhouse Effect
The greenhouse effect was measured in the laboratory by John Tyndall in 1859; Swedish meteorologist Nils Gustaf Ekholm attached the greenhouse name to it in 1901, decades after the physics had been worked out.
Q 06Which potent greenhouse gas persists in the atmosphere for only about 12 years?
Methane
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential significantly higher than CO2 over a 100-year period, but it has a much shorter atmospheric lifetime of about 12 years compared to CO2's much longer persistence.
Q 07Which scientist showed in an 1856 paper that CO2 absorbs heat and could alter climate?
Eunice Newton Foote
Eunice Newton Foote's 1856 paper found that a glass cylinder filled with carbon dioxide heated far more in sunlight than one of ordinary air, three years before John Tyndall's better-known experiments.
Q 08Which scientist first quantitatively predicted, in 1896, the warming from doubling atmospheric CO2?
Svante Arrhenius
Svante Arrhenius's 1896 paper calculated that doubling atmospheric CO2 would warm the Earth by roughly 5–6 °C, a prospect the Swedish chemist regarded as broadly benign.
Q 09Melting glaciers and polar ice sheets directly contribute to which significant environmental consequence?
Sea Level Rise
As land-based glaciers and ice sheets melt due to rising global temperatures, the water flows into the oceans, directly increasing global sea levels.
Q 10What do scientists call the ocean's chemical shift caused by absorbing excess carbon dioxide?
Ocean Acidification
Ocean acidification: between 1950 and 2020 the average surface pH fell from about 8.15 to 8.05, roughly a 26% rise in hydrogen ion concentration, as seawater absorbed excess CO2.
Q 11Which climate policy sets a fixed ceiling on emissions and lets firms exchange permits?
Cap and Trade
Cap and trade is an emissions trading system that sets a maximum limit on total emissions and allows companies to trade emission allowances, creating a financial incentive to reduce pollution.
Q 12Besides raising sea levels, what other major impact does warmer seawater have on marine ecosystems?
Coral Bleaching
Rising ocean temperatures can cause coral bleaching, a phenomenon where corals expel vital algae, leading to their whitening and often death, which severely impacts biodiversity and marine habitats.
Q 13What term, also called decarbonisation, describes action to limit the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere?
Q 21Which two United Nations bodies set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988?
WMO and UNEP
Its first chair, Bert Bolin, was elected the same year, and the panel shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.
Q 22What collective name is given to atmospheric constituents that absorb and emit the infrared Earth radiates?
Greenhouse Gases
Greenhouse gases such as water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane absorb and re-emit infrared; nitrogen and oxygen, 99% of dry air, are transparent to it, so these trace constituents do the heat-trapping.
Q 23Which nation has released the most cumulative carbon dioxide since the Industrial Revolution?
United States
Climate Mitigation
Climate Mitigation, or decarbonisation, cuts greenhouse gas emissions at their origin or boosts the sinks that absorb them, lessening future warming.
Q 14What term describes ground frozen for at least two consecutive years, which releases carbon as it thaws?
Permafrost
Permafrost is ground that stays at or below 0 °C for at least two consecutive years; the oldest known permafrost has been frozen around 700,000 years, and thawing lets microbes release carbon locked up since the ice ages.
Q 15Which feedback loop amplifies warming as bright frozen surfaces give way to darker land and water?
Ice-Albedo Feedback
Ice-albedo feedback: fresh snow reflects up to about 90% of incoming sunlight while open ocean absorbs over 90%, so each patch of lost sea ice lets more solar energy warm the surface.
Q 16Which process in the carbon cycle has plants absorb CO2 to create organic compounds?
Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is the process by which green plants and other organisms use sunlight to synthesize foods from carbon dioxide and water, playing a crucial role in removing CO2 from the atmosphere as part of the carbon cycle.
Q 17What umbrella term covers heatwaves, droughts and heavy rainfall intensifying as the planet warms?
Extreme Weather Events
A key impact of climate change is the increasing occurrence and severity of extreme weather events, including prolonged heatwaves, more intense droughts, heavier rainfall, and stronger storms, affecting regions worldwide.
Q 18What is the term for capturing atmospheric carbon dioxide and storing it long-term in forests, soils or rock?
Carbon Sequestration
Carbon Sequestration is the capture and storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide, in forests, soils or underground geological formations, to blunt climate change.
Q 19Which 2015 accord, adopted at COP21, aims to keep global warming well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels?
Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement's long-term goal is to hold the rise in global surface temperature well below 2 °C, with efforts to limit it to 1.5 °C; it was adopted in December 2015.
Q 20Which synthetic gas has a 100-year warming potential roughly 23,500 times that of carbon dioxide?
Sulfur Hexafluoride
Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), used as an insulator in high-voltage switchgear, was assigned a 100-year warming potential of 23,500 in the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report and lingers for roughly 3,200 years.
The United States has emitted roughly a quarter of all fossil-fuel CO2 since 1850, more than any other nation; China overtook the US in annual emissions only around 2006.
Q 24What term is a calculated index of the total greenhouse gas emissions an activity, product or country adds?
Carbon Footprint
A carbon footprint totals the greenhouse gases attributable to an activity, product or country, expressed in tonnes of CO2-equivalent so that methane and nitrous oxide count alongside carbon dioxide.
Q 25What is a structure whose annual power use is matched by renewable generation on-site or procured off-site called?
Zero-energy building
A zero-energy building generates as much renewable energy over a year as it consumes; the EU's Energy Performance of Buildings Directive has required new buildings to meet a related 'nearly zero-energy' standard since 2021.
Q 26Which process in living cells oxidises carbohydrates back to carbon dioxide, the reverse of photosynthesis?
Cellular Respiration
Cellular respiration oxidises glucose to carbon dioxide and water to release energy as ATP; photosynthesis captures roughly 130 terawatts globally, and respiration by plants, animals and microbes returns most of that carbon to the air.
Q 27Which scientist's June 1988 Senate testimony raised broad public awareness of global warming?
James Hansen
James Hansen, then director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told a Senate committee on 23 June 1988 that he was 99 percent confident the warming trend was real and tied it to the greenhouse effect.
Q 28What are the numerical simulations coupling atmosphere, ocean, land and ice to project Earth's future called?
Climate Models
Climate Models are mathematical simulations of the drivers of climate; modern ones are often called earth system models because they add the carbon cycle and vegetation to the physics.
Q 29What technology captures CO2 from a point source and injects it into deep geological formations?
Carbon Capture and Storage
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) scrubs CO2 from flue gas at power plants or factories and injects it underground; Norway's Sleipner field has stored about a million tonnes a year in a saline aquifer since 1996.
Q 30The IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report found that half of all species with long-term data had shifted their ranges in which direction?
Poleward
Poleward: the IPCC's 2022 Working Group II report found roughly half of species with long-term records have shifted toward the poles, or upslope on mountains, across insects, birds, fish and plants alike.