Global warming has emerged as the dominant environmental problem of our time. The next fifty years will be a period of growing accumulation of greenhouse gasses (GHG) in the atmosphere and rising temperatures. It could also be a period in which the nations of the world adopt more stringent policies to control the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other GHG. If emissions are cut sufficiently, it is possible to stabilize GHG within the first half of the century. The risks of global warming could be reduced, but not eliminated. This paper describes recent applications of system dynamics to improve our understanding of climate change, and it looks ahead to the potential contributions in the future.