Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on 18 April 2022 and has been updated for accuracy and to include new visuals.
From November 30 – December 12, the world’s governments will converge in Dubai at COP28 – United Nations Climate Change Conference to discuss how to limit and prepare for future climate change. Although both climate change’s impact on animal lives and our contribution to climate change through animal use are significant concerns, these issues remain conspicuously absent from COP28’s top-level conversations.
We Animals has documented the scope and scale of these issues and we’ve curated a gallery of our top Animals & Disasters visuals. In the lead up to—and throughout—COP28, we invite you to share these compelling visuals and connect your community to these underreported stories.
01
Two pigs stand nose to nose in flood waters while awaiting rescue at an Italian factory pig farm. Extreme weather in May 2023 caused mudslides and waterways to overflow, severely affecting numerous factory farms. This farm had no evacuation plan, and many pigs were trapped in the flood waters for days. Lugo, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, 2023.
Selene Magnolia / Essere Animali / We Animals
02
Following two massive February 2023 earthquakes, HAYTAP Animal Rights Federation and Istanbul Fire Department team members carry a mother dog from inside a damaged building. The team rescued the mother dog and her litter of puppies five days after the earthquakes struck the country. Antakya, Hatay, Turkiye, 2023.
Ozan Acidere / We Animals
03
Dead fish floating in flood waters after Hurricane Florence. North Carolina, USA, 2018.
Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals
04
Staff members of Tri-State Bird Rescue de-oil a brown pelican at the Fort Jackson, Louisiana rehabilitation site. Florida, USA, 2010.
Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals
05
Wet and muddy dairy cows stand in receding flood waters after a series of eight atmospheric rivers battered the state of California since late December 2022. Elk Grove, California, USA, January 13, 2023.
Nikki Ritcher / We Animals
06
A sow in a crate stands belly-deep in flood water infiltrating an Italian factory pig farm. Extreme weather in May 2023 caused mudslides and massive flooding, severely affecting numerous factory farms. This farm had no evacuation plan and pigs stood in the water for days before being rescued. Lugo, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, 2023.
Selene Magnolia / Essere Animali / We Animals
07
Workers gather up surviving chickens, mostly chicks, at an Italian egg-production factory farm destroyed by flooding. Extreme weather in May 2023 caused mudslides and waterways to overflow, severely affecting numerous factory farms. At this farm, three sheds flooded, and over 60,000 hens were drowned or crushed. Dead chickens hang inside the cages in the background. San Lorenzo in Noceto, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, 2023.
Selene Magnolia / Essere Animali / We Animals
08
A dead asp lies on the bank of a Polish river after the water was poisoned by an unknown substance in July 2022. Such a large individual could have otherwise lived for several years. Oder River, Gostchorze, Poland, 2022.
Andrew Skowron / We Animals
09
A farm sits partially submerged in water from the Abbotsford, BC floods in November of 2021. British Columbia has felt the devastating effects of climate change throughout 2021 with wildfires, a heat dome and most recently, severe flooding. Ground zero for the November floods hit one of Canada’s largest animal agriculture zones in the Fraser Valley, which produces 75% of the dairy and the majority of the chicken and eggs for the province. When the floods inundated Abbotsford, hundreds of thousands of animals, mostly chickens, are believed to have perished in the disaster. Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, 2021.
Nick Schafer Media / We Animals
10
A dead goat, burned alive, lays in the burned landscape outside the village of Mynthi in the Peloponnese peninsula. Greece, 2007.
Milos Bicanski / We Animals
These photographs are just a selection from our Environment and Climate Change gallery, which features almost 1,200 compelling visuals captured by our team of international photojournalists. As always, the We Animals stock collection offers high quality photos and video clips to support your work, free for non-commercial use.
Visit our Animals & Disasters gallery to view and download these images (and more) or search specific keywords to get the visuals you need.