Last updated 25 Nov 2020
Climate change, climate catastrophe, global warming. All of these terms and more are being used to describe the impending disaster that is affecting the environment and ultimately us. Below are our top five facts pertaining to climate change.
What do the numbers say?
1
416 parts per million 1
The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere, as of May 2020, is the highest it has been in human history
2
11% of emissions
Eleven percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans are due to deforestation — comparable to the emissions from all of the passenger vehicles on the planet.
3
7.49 full time jobs
One estimate found that for every $1 million invested in renewables infrastructure or energy efficiency generates 7.49 and 7.72 full-time jobs respectively. This compares with only 2.65 in fossil-fuel infrastructure.
4
$140-300 billion per year by 2030
The UN Environment Programme estimates that the global cost of adapting to the impact of climate impacts will grow to $140-300 billion per year by 2030 and $280-500 billion per year by 2050.
5
8% emission reduction due to covid
The International Energy Agency estimates that emissions have only fallen by around 8 percent due to Covid. This is the equivalent of 47 billion tons of carbon, instead of 51 billion.
Interesting Companies
Finally, here is an important paper to read if you want to do anything with AI to tackle climate change. It features researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University, Stanford University, DeepMind, Google AI, Microsoft Research and others.
References
[1] https://www.conservation.org/stories/11-climate-change-facts-you-need-to-know
[2] https://eciu.net/analysis/briefings/climate-impacts/climate-economics-costs-and-benefits#:~:text=The%20impacts%20of%20climate%20change%20over%20the%20next%20few%20decades,billion%20per%20year%20by%202050.
[3] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/Climate-and-COVID-19