Today, with modern technology, humans can live in places where it was impossible before. This is achieved by the provision of buildings and complex infrastructure tuned to the existing climate, such as urban and rural water supplies, drainage, bridges, roads and other communications. These involve huge investments of time and money. Trade, particularly of food and fibre for manufactured goods, has also been strongly influenced by climate.

The link between climate change and biodiversity has long been established. Although throughout Earth's history the climate has always changes with ecosystems and species coming and going, rapid climate change affects ecosystems and species ability to adapt and so biodiversity loss increases.