The history of life on Earth is closely associated with environmental change on multiple spatial and temporal scales. Climate change is a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates. These changes have a broad range of observed effects that are synonymous with the term. Climate change is any significant long term change in the expected pattern, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity. Predicting the effects that climate change will have on plant biodiversity can be achieved using various models, however bioclimatic models are most commonly used. Environmental conditions play a key role in defining the function and geographic distributions of plants, in combination with other factors, thereby modifying patterns of biodiversity. Changes in long term environmental conditions that can be collectively coined climate change are known to have had enormous impacts on current plant diversity patterns; further impacts are expected in the future. It is predicted that climate change will remain one of the major drivers of biodiversity patterns in the future. Human actions are currently triggering the sixth major mass extinction our Earth has seen, changing the distribution and abundance of many plants. A 2022 evaluation of vascular plant species suggests that species with no major uses in human society are much more likely to go extinct compared to plants actively cultivated for human purposes such as agriculture or urban decoration. Palaeo context The Earth has experienced a constantly changing climate in the time since plants first evolved. In comparison to the present day, this history has seen Earth as cooler, warmer, drier and wetter, and (carbon dioxide) concentrations have been both higher and lower. These changes have been reflected by constantly shifting vegetation, for example forest communities dominating most areas in interglacial periods, and herbaceous communities dominating during glacial periods. It has been shown through fossil records that past climatic change has been a major driver of the processes of speciation and extinction. The best known example of this is the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse which occurred 350 million years ago. This event decimated amphibian populations and spurred on the evolution of reptiles. Modern context There is significant current interest and research focus on the phenomenon of recent anthropogenic climate changes, or global warming. Focus is on identifying the current impacts of climate change on biodiversity, and predicting these effects into the