Burning world’s fossil fuel reserves could emit 3.5tn tons of greenhouse gas [link to Guardian UK]
Burning the world’s proven reserves of fossil fuels would emit more planet-heating emissions than have occurred since the industrial revolution, easily blowing the remaining carbon budget before societies are subjected to catastrophic global heating, a new analysis has found.
An enormous 3.5tn tons of greenhouse gas emissions will be emitted if governments allow identified reserves of coal, oil and gas to be extracted and used, according to what has been described as the first public database of fossil fuel production.
Carbon budget remaining before world reaches +1.5C warming Range of 400-500bn tons
As if everything has been alright up to now, 2022 has been a notable one.
Climate Tops 2022 WEF Global Risks Report
Respondents to the 2022 World Economic Forum Global Risks Perception Survey ranked 'Climate action failure' as the number one risk with potentially the most severe impact over the next decade.
Extreme weather due to climate change is seen as the second most serious short-term risk, with biodiversity loss coming in third.
United in Science: We are heading in the wrong direction
The past seven years were the warmest on record. There is a 48% chance that, during at least one year in the next 5 years, the annual mean temperature will temporarily be 1.5°C higher than 1850-1900 average. As global warming increases, “tipping points” in the climate system can not be ruled out.
Cities that host billions of people and are responsible for up to 70% of human-caused emissions will face increasing socio-economic impacts. The most vulnerable populations will suffer most, says the report which gives examples of extreme weather in different parts of the world this year.
Revealed: how climate breakdown is supercharging toll of extreme weather
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The 12 events deemed virtually impossible without humanity’s destabilisation of the climate span the globe, including intense heatwaves in North America, Europe and Japan, soaring temperatures in Siberia and sweltering seas off Australia.
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Seventy-one per cent of the 500 extreme weather events and trends in the database were found to have been made more likely or more severe by human-caused climate change, including 93% of heatwaves, 68% of droughts and 56% of floods or heavy rain. Only 9% of the events were less likely, mostly cold snaps and snowstorms.
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One in three deaths caused by summer heat over the last three decades was the direct result of human-caused global heating, implying a toll of millions.
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Huge financial costs are also now attributable to human influence on the climate, such as $67bn of damages when Hurricane Harvey smashed into Texas and Louisiana in 2017, which was 75% of the total damages from the storm.
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Global heating has been hurting us for far longer than commonly assumed, with traces of its influence as far back as the heatwaves and droughts that triggered the infamous Dust Bowl in the US in the mid-1930s.
I often hear wailing from deniers about how much tackling the crisis will cost, why are they not angry about the costs so far? We have only just started the counting.
The Paris Agreement, ha.
While countries agreed in the 2015 Paris climate accords to curb global heating, three decades of international talks did not yield any commitment to actually reduce the primary cause of the climate emergency – the burning of fossil fuels. At UN talks last year in Glasgow, wrangling by diplomats did yield a promise to “phase down”, but not out, the use of coal.
Where is my fiddle?
The world is burning.