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Key points on the climate emergency
Human activity is changing the climate.
The situation is already serious and it is becoming catastrophic.
The solution is clear: urgent radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions - but action by governments and wider society has been worse than inadequate.
Citizens must become involved in the decision making.
Human activity is changing the climate
Climate change is happening now
- Average temperatures have increased and are continuing to increase
- There are more droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, storms and floods.
- Climate refugees have been forced from their homes by their land becoming infertile.
Climate change is man-made
- It is now clear that climate change is due to greenhouse gases (especially CO2) released into the atmosphere by human activity
- Levels of CO2 have increased steadily since mankind started burning fossil fuels in large quantities
- The average temperature rises are in line with predictions from what is known about the atmosphere.
The situation is already serious and it is becoming catastrophic
Due to climate change, we already have- lethal heatwaves and wildfires (see Appendix)
- lethal storms: hurricanes, typhoons, floods and mudslides
- civil unrest: e.g. the conflict in Syria
- climate refugees
- loss of species.
The solution is clear: urgent, radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions - but action by governments and wider society has been worse than inadequate
Immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are needed
The AR6 report was released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in August 2021. Some key points from the IPCC are- "Unless there are immediate rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting global warming to 1.5C will be beyond reach"
- this means rapid and far-reaching transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities
- the residual global carbon budget to stay within 1.5° of global warming will run out in 2031 at current emission rates
- in high-polluting countries such as the UK, a fair share of the residual global carbon budget will run out in 2 years - see document 33
The solutions are simple and should have been implemented already
We already know what to do:- phase out use of fossil fuels as quickly as possible
- use less energy
- increase energy generation from sustainable sources.
But there has been denial and poor decision making throughout society
The threat from climate change has been known for decades. International agreements have been made but they have been inadequate and compliance with them has been poor.- World greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase.
- UK greenhouse gas emissions have fallen little (despite official claims)
- poor decision making by the politicians and officals
- mass denial of the scale and urgency of the problem throughout society
- "Some government and business leaders are saying one thing - but doing another. Simply put, they are lying"
Many citizens feel an obligation to act
António Guterres (Secretary-General of the United Nations) has said (document 136)We owe a debt to young people, civil society and indigenous communities for sounding the alarm and holding leaders accountable. We need to build on their work to create a grassroots movement that cannot be ignored.
Citizens who care about the world should
- examine the concerns of the protesters
- avoid inadvertently repeating the many circulating fallacies
- change their own lifestyle to a sustainable lifestyle (e. g. by using the calculator at https://www.carbonindependent.org/index.html)
- contribute to the "grassroots movement that cannot be ignored" advocated by António Guterres
- contribute to an effective plan - see document 57
- insist that the decision-makers comply with this plan.
Appendix: mortality from climate change
Two studies have estimated how many climate related deaths will happen as a result of CO2 emitted. Both estimates were around one climate death for each 4,000 tonnes CO2 emitted.- A paper published in Nature [1] estimated one death per 4,434 tonnes CO2. The paper pointed out that this is equivalent to the lifetime emissions of 3.5 average Americans. This was reported in The Guardian [2].
- A second paper [3] gave an estimate of one death per 1,000 tonnes carbon burnt - which releases 3,700 tonnes CO2.
References
| [1] | The mortality cost of carbon (2021) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24487-w |
| [2] | Three Americans create enough carbon emissions to kill one person, study finds (2021) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/29/carbon-emissions-americans-social-cost |
| [3] | The Human Cost of Anthropogenic Global Warming: Semi-Quantitative Prediction and the 1,000-Tonne Rule (2019) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02323/full |
First published: Feb 2019
Last updated: 19 Jan 2023