Alligators in Canada, palm trees in Siberia, sunbathing weather at the North Pole. Images like this are no longer pure fantasy. The times when climate change was only being discussed by experts and as a side issue are also over. Instead, the significance of climate change is growing day by day. The objective now is to address all the findings on climate protection with action.

However, what do we actually know about climate protection, climate phenomena and extreme weather? What factors influence them? What is actually the difference between weather and climate? Indeed, there continues to be a pressing need for reliable information on an issue like climate change which is both fiercely debated and highly controversial.

This is also why the Allianz Foundation for Sustainability published an in-depth climate brochure last year. The brochure provides detailed information on 54 pages and a helpful overview of the issues and factors influencing the complex climate on Earth. It also describes the history of the climate and addresses what the world’s climate might be like in the future. The brochure now has a print-run of 35,000 copies and has been distributed to a large number of secondary and higher-education schools in Germany, thus making a key contribution to the climate debate.

The strong interest in the brochure has encouraged the Sustainability Foundation to produce an English version which can now be downloaded from the Internet.