Fact-checking the emergency
The climate and ecological crisis is the biggest story in human history and must be front-page news every single day.
The immense size of the emergency means that the crisis impacts every single beat. It is an economic story and a public health story. It is a public transportation story and an urban design story. Global heating and ecological collapse impact racial justice, equity, community development, food, global supply chains, water resources, sport, leisure, tech infrastructure, and much much more.
And yet 53% of the people in this country do not hear about the biggest emergency facing humanity. The news media is failing the American public by failing to Tell the Truth.
This means the emergency is partly a crisis of communication. Six in ten Americans (60%) feel at least “fairly well informed” about global warming. But only one in ten Americans (10%) feel “very well informed.”
Fairly well informed about an existential threat is not good enough.
So here are some facts and figures to help journalists talk about the climate and ecological catastrophe in ways that convey the severity of the planetary crisis. All of these facts have been fact-checked and endorsed by XR’s large and diverse team of climate scientists and ecologists. The few with footnotes are taken from respected publications. These stats are fully up-to-date as of June 2020. Please refer to the Emergency on Planet Earth document for further info, and for all links and primary sources.
The Climate & Ecological Crisis – top facts:
Carbon dioxide levels (a greenhouse gas that causes heating of our planet) are higher today than at any point in the last 3 million years. They are rising around 100 times faster than any previous natural change in the last 800,000 years.
19 of the top 20 hottest years have occurred in the last 19 years, and the past four years have been the hottest on record. In 2019, nearly 400 temperature records were broken across 29 countries. July 2019 was the hottest month ever recorded.
The current rate of heating of our planet is equivalent to five nuclear bombs going off every second.
All this extra heat is causing melting of ice caps, rising sea levels and damage to wildlife, as well as changes to our climate that can result in the spread of diseases and extreme weather such as heatwaves, forest fires, droughts, storms and floods. Such events can not only damage our homes, affect our health and harm our wildlife, but they can also prevent the crops that feed us from being able to grow.
The number of extreme climate-related disasters - including extreme heat, droughts, floods and storms - has doubled since the early 1990s. More than two thirds of all extreme weather events investigated were made more likely, or more severe, by human-caused climate change. According to Morgan Stanley, from 2016-2018 climate-related disasters cost the world $650 billion.
Damages to health from air pollution alone cost over 4% of GDP in the 15 countries with highest emissions, yet it will cost less than 0.1% of global GDP per year to make the changes humanity needs to adapt to a warming world
Rising temperatures allow the bacteria that cause deadly diarrhoea to thrive, which is leading to increased spread of infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. Rising temperatures are also creating conditions for tropical diseases to spread to parts of the world where they are not usually seen. According to The Lancet: “Climate change is the biggest health threat of the 21st century.”
Over the past 40 years, the amount of ice we have lost from our planet averages out to around 300 double-decker-bus-sized chunks of ice every second. Melting glaciers threaten the water supplies of 1.9 billion people living downstream. If we keep going as we are all the polar bears will soon be gone.
Humanity’s collective action has caused wildlife populations to decline by an estimated 60% since the 1970s. One million more species are at risk of extinction in the coming decades due to human action, including many of the insects that are required to pollinate our crops. By 2050, 99% of our corals will have been wiped out. Corals are some of the most important and diverse ecosystems on the planet. They support up to one million other species and provide food, protection from storms and livelihoods for nearly one billion people.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Rainforest is occurring faster than three football fields a minute
95% of what we eat relies on healthy topsoil. Yet over the past 150 years, due to intensive farming practices – along with deforestation, more extreme rainfall (that washes topsoil away into rivers), and increased erosion due to climate change – we have lost more than half of our topsoil, and more than 80% of our soil-rejuvenating earthworms. Experts say we have just 60 years of harvests left.
It is now widely understood that if we go above 1.5°C warming we risk setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control, which are predicted to have catastrophic impacts on our planet.
The IPCC report stated that in order to have even a 50% chance of remaining below 1.5°C warming, global carbon dioxide emissions must now “decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero around 2050”.
However, at our current emissions rates, we are on track to go over 1.5°C heating by around 2030 and to hit 2°C heating by around 2050 – which would break the promise made in the Paris Agreement.
The IPCC predicts that, if things keep going as they are, by 2050 an additional 350 million people across the globe will be at risk of heat stress, an additional 420 million people will frequently be exposed to extreme heatwaves, and an additional 65 million people will be exposed to exceptional heatwaves.
By 2050, rising sea levels are projected to make land inhabited by more than 300 million people likely to flood at least once a year. Without major investment, flooding in cities across the globe is forecast to cost over US$1 trillion per year
By around 2050 it’s predicted that as many as 1.5 billion MORE people – bringing the total to 5 billion people – are likely to face shortages of food and clean water, particularly those in Africa and South Asia. That’s one in every two people.
On our current path, by 2050 it is estimated that there could be up to 200 million environmental migrants. Mass migration and famine are likely to take us towards civil unrest and ultimately war, raising the terrifying possibility of societal collapse.
Without drastic action, Earth’s temperature is on course to rise by a terrifying 3°C – or even 4°C – by the end of the century. That amount of heating would make some parts of the world simply too hot for people and animals to live on, and would cause enough sea level rise that could flood the homes of hundreds of millions of people, eventually submerging some countries completely.
Scientists have warned that at 4C “It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate eight billion people or even half of that. There will be a rich minority of people who survive with modern lifestyles, no doubt, but it will be a turbulent, conflict-ridden world.”
The carbon footprint of the average American is over 250 times that of individuals in several African countries
Going ‘plant-based’ is the single biggest way that you can reduce your personal impact on the planet
A flight from London to Rome produces 22 times more carbon emissions than going the equivalent distance by train
Around 1.3 billion tonnes of household food is wasted every year. That’s equivalent to a mountain over 8 times the height of the Eiffel Tower, and 3 km across
The U.S. is on fire
Climate-related disasters – mostly wildfires and hurricanes – have cost North America $415 billion in taxpayer money in the last three years. Texas lost about $125 billion from Hurricane Harvey; Hurricane Sandy cost about $71 billion.
The largest naval base on earth, Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, is routinely flooded by the rising sea, imperling its fleet of nuclear submarines
Electricity companies have begun to cut power to customers to avoid sparking wildfires. Pacific Gas & Electric in California cut electricity to 2.5 million people in October
Phoenix is one of the fastest-warming cities in the country. In 2018 there were 182 heat-related deaths confirmed in the city and surrounding Maricopa County, a record number of deaths for the third consecutive year
National parks are losing their crown jewels. Montana's Glacier National Park has lost four fifths of its glaciers since 1910.
Aedes aegypti mosquito, which thrives in warm climates and can be a vector for the Zika, chikungunya, and dengue viruses, has been expanding its range in the U.S, spreading north by 150 miles per year.
Doctors call climate change a public health emergency and one of the gravest threats to health that America has ever faced
The burning of fossil fuels has turned the air we breathe into a foul mix of toxic gases and tiny particles that lodge deep inside our lungs, killing more than 100,000 Americans every year
The world’s thickest mountain glacier, in Alaska, is finally melting
The future for the U.S., the northeast and Washington D.C.
Hotter than the rest: D.C.’s climate will feel like Mississippi’s – subtropical – by the end of the century. The northeast will warm more than any other region in the U.S, rising to 2°C by 2035 – two decades before the global average hits the same temperature.
Underwater: Sea level rise in Washington D.C. could raise rivers by as much as 11-12 feet within 80 years. At this depth, the water will submerge Reagan National Airport, as well as of the National Mall, East Potomac Park and Anacostia Park. Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling will be inundated, and so will the Navy Yard.
A sea level rise of just six feet could force 13 million Americans to abandon their homes. That’s the combined population of New York and Los Angeles.
Inaction costs: Every degree Celsius of warming costs countries 1.2% of their GDP on average. Climate breakdown could slash 10% off real income in the U.S. by 2100 – more than double the losses of the Great Recession a decade ago.
Building sea walls and other barriers to keep back the rising sea will cost Virginia $31 billion, Maryland $27 billion, and D.C. $138 million over the next 20 years.
By 2040, the amount people pay for their energy bills will rise by as much as 18%. The more emissions are cut, the further the price drops.
Food: In 30 years, the changes in rainfall and temperature will reduce the agricultural productivity of the Midwest to levels last seen in the 1980s.
Extreme heat: By 2030 Washington D.C. could suffer 20 days above 105°F, rising to 45 days by 2070. Extreme heat will increase deaths and illness, raise home energy bills, and drive large numbers of people away from the hottest areas.
By the end of the century, an estimated 360,000 people in D.C. will endure “off-the-charts” heat days for the equivalent of a week or more per year. Historically, fewer than 2,000 people nationwide have experienced such conditions in an average year. It’s not too late. If the world keeps global heating below 2°C, all D.C.’s residents will avoid this nightmare.
Out of pocket: Temperature extremes will cause the loss of an estimated two billion labor hours each year by 2090, resulting in the loss of $160 billion in wages.
Sad and violent: Extreme heat affects mental health and well-being. Higher outdoor temperatures are linked to a decrease in joy and happiness, and an increase in aggression and violence
Black lungs: Deaths caused by ground-level ozone pollution will increase substantially as emissions rise. More and more of us will choke to death on the fumes released by burning fossil fuels. By mid-century, the hotter planet will mean Americans suffer a 70% increase in unhealthy ozone smog.
Disease: Hotter winters, which will warm three times faster than summers in the northeast, will spread mosquitos, fleas and ticks, transmitting dengue, yellow fever, Lyme disease, Nile fever and Zika.
Inequality: In one of the largest transfers of wealth in US history, the poorest third of counties are expected to lose up to 20% of their income within 80 years
Playtime is over: A warmer northeast combined with a hotter ocean, more wildfires and rising sea levels will make it harder to ski, fish, hike, play sport, and swim. Less snow and ice could chop $2bn off the winter sports industry. Toxic algal blooms from hotter water will make it difficult to swim and freshwater fish. The shoreline along the Atlantic coast is likely eroding at rates of at least 1 meter per year along 30% of its sandy beaches
Internet: More than 4,000 miles of fiber optic cable as well as data centers, traffic exchanges and termination points could be underwater within 13 years, severely disrupting the information and communication network
Devolution: If carbon dioxide rises to 1,000ppm, which it is on course to do by 2100, then human cognitive ability will decline by 21%.
How hot is it and why should we care?
19 of the top 20 hottest years have occurred in the last 19 years, and the past four years have been the hottest on record.
In 2019, nearly 400 temperature records were broken across 29 countries
July 2019 was the hottest month ever recorded
We are currently 1.1C hotter than pre-industrial times, about 150 years ago
Temperatures are higher today than they have been in at least 2,000 years
The rate of temperature rise is unprecedented in past 10,000 years - long before human civilisation began
The current rate of heating of our planet is equivalent to five nuclear bombs going off every second
All this extra heat is causing melting of ice caps, rising sea levels and damage to wildlife, as well as changes to our climate that can result in the spread of diseases and extreme weather such as heatwaves, forest fires, droughts, storms and floods.
Such events can not only damage our homes, affect our health and harm our wildlife, but they can also prevent the crops that feed us from being able to grow.
As temperatures continue to rise, events like this will become more and more common.
Even if you’re lucky enough to escape the direct impacts of these events, remember most of us depend on food that’s been imported from other parts of the world; so if crops are damaged by extreme weather events far away, that’s likely to lead to price rises or even shortages of certain foods where YOU are too.
By around 2050, if things keep going as they are, it’s predicted that as many as 1.5 billion MORE people – 5 billion people in total – are likely to face shortages of food and clean water, particularly those in Africa and South Asia. That’s one in every two people.
Why is it so hot?
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases cause heating of our atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide has been being released in enormous quantities due to human action since the beginning of agriculture, but especially since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
Carbon dioxide is released by the burning of fossil fuels, by deforestation, and from the ploughing of our soils.
Other greenhouse gases released in huge quantities due to human action include methane from paddy fields and from cow farts, and nitrous oxide from animal waste and chemical fertilisers.
Carbon dioxide levels are higher today than at any point in the last 3 million years.
Carbon dioxide levels are rising today 100 times faster than any previous natural changes in the last 800,000 years
Scientists have found a “human fingerprint” on climate change, proving that the excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has come from the burning of fossil fuels and that it is this excess which is causing the atmosphere to heat up.
Other factors such as sunspots and volcanoes have had negligible impact on global heating.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report: “Evidence for man-made warming of our climate system is unequivocal.”
Analysis of 11,602 peer-reviewed articles on “climate change” and “global warming” published in 2019 found the scientific consensus on global warming being caused by human action has now reached 100%.
Stefan Rahmstorf, Professor of Physics of the Oceans at Potsdam University: “In just 100 years, fossil fuel use has more than undone 5000 years of natural cooling. It's hotter now than any time in the history of human civilisation. We are catapulting ourselves out of the Holocene into uncharted territory. Current life on Earth is not adapted to this.”
What do we need to do?
In 2016, the Paris Agreement was signed by 175 countries and the European Union, which pledged to “keep a global temperature rise this century well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5°C”
In 2018, a special report from the IPCC - a large group of scientists known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change whose job it is to weigh up all the science related to climate change - laid out why it is essential that we limit warming to 1.5°C.
It warned that if we reach heating of 1.5°C or higher, we increase the risk of long-lasting or irreversible changes to our planet – such as the total loss of some ecosystems.
The report said that at 1.5°C heating, many people across the globe will struggle to cope with the changing climate, especially the very poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, and that every extra bit of warming matters.
It is now widely understood that if we go above 1.5°C warming we risk setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control, which are predicted to have catastrophic impacts on our planet.
McKinsey Global Institute Climate Risk and Response Report, 2020: “While adaptation is now urgent and there are many adaptation opportunities, climate science tells us that further warming and risk increase can only be stopped by achieving zero net greenhouse gas emissions.”
How do we stay below 1.5C?
The IPCC report stated that in order to have even a 50% chance of remaining below 1.5°C warming, global carbon dioxide emissions must now “decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero around 2050”.
The latest UN Emissions Gap Report says in order to achieve this emissions must reach a peak in 2020 at the latest and then there must be unprecedented, rapid reductions in global carbon emissions of at least 8% per year.
Even if we DO manage to cut emissions in half by 2030, to achieve net zero by 2050 we’d still need to suck in LOADS of carbon dioxide from the air.
To do this we’d need to plant trillions of trees, in an area at least the size of the United States of America, and also invent extra technology to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
It’s true that some Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology does already exist, but not in a way that’s anywhere close to being reliable enough or being able to be used on large enough scales.
Professor Stephan Harrison, Professor of Climate and Environmental Change, University of Exeter: "We have all the resources we need to deal with this. There is nothing magical about reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There is nothing magical about the greenhouse effect. We know exactly how to deal with it. We just don’t have the political or economic will to do this.”
Where are we currently heading?
Keeping heating below 1.5C is a target most countries are not set to meet.
Although global carbon dioxide emissions are not rising quite as steeply as they used to be, they are still going up.
At our current emissions rates, we are on track to go OVER 1.5°C heating by around 2030 and to hit 2°C heating by around 2050 – which would break the promise made in the Paris Agreement.
Without drastic action, Earth’s temperature is on course to rise by a terrifying 3°C – or even 4°C – by the end of the century.
That amount of heating would make some parts of the world simply too hot for people and animals to live on, and cause an amount of sea level rise that could flood the homes of hundreds of millions of people, eventually submerging some countries completely.
Professor Johan Rockström, director of The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, fears that in a 4°C-warmer world: “It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate eight billion people or even half of that. There will be a rich minority of people who survive with modern lifestyles, no doubt, but it will be a turbulent, conflict-ridden world.” By 2100 we would have been heading towards a population of around 11.2 billion.
What’s going on as a result of global warming and other changes to our planet?
Extreme weather
Climate change results in more frequent and more extreme heatwaves, heavier rainfall, stronger winds, more extreme tropical storms and more intense hurricanes.
In general, wetter areas are getting wetter - increasing the risk of flooding - and dryer areas are getting drier - increasing the risk of droughts and forest fires.
The number of extreme climate-related disasters - including extreme heat, droughts, floods and storms - has doubled since the early 1990s
More than two thirds of all extreme weather events investigated were made more likely, or more severe, by human-caused climate change.
According to Morgan Stanley, from 2016-2018 climate-related disasters cost the world $650 billion.
The clean-up bill following the storms in the UK in February 2020 is set to top £360 million, with the average household claiming £36,000 on insurance.
Some insurance companies are already warning that they will soon stop insuring basements in London, New York and Mumbai.
We are headed towards more wildfires, killer storms and heatwaves, rising sea levels, droughts, flooding and desertification - putting food supplies at risk.
Dr Sunita Narain, Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment: “Join the dots. It's happening. It's happening in your world, it's happening in my world. And let's be very clear about this - it is going to get much worse.”
Professor Peter Stott, the Met Office: “World leaders should be listening not just to scientists but also to the people who are being affected by extreme weather events right now. They are seeing it with their own eyes and suffering from it. Humanity just won’t be able to cope with the world we are heading for.”
What will happen to our weather by 2050?
The IPCC warns that we will be experiencing extreme heat waves of the kind seen in 2019 every summer.
The IPCC predicts that an additional 350 million people across the globe will be at risk of heat stress, an additional 420 million people will frequently be exposed to extreme heatwaves, and an additional 65 million people will be exposed to exceptional heatwaves
Tropical cyclones are more likely to be hitting Western Europe.
Michael Mann, director of the Pennsylvania State Earth System Science Centre: “Unrestrained climate change means we will see many more [hurricane] Harveys in the future.”
Melting ice and rising seas
Increased temperatures melt ice from above whilst warming oceans melts sea ice from below
Warm water expands and takes up more space, causing sea levels to rise
Water from melting ice sheets and glaciers also causes sea level rise
Over the past 40 years, the amount of ice we have lost from our planet averages out to 300 double-decker-bus-sized chunks of ice every second.
In the Arctic, sea ice has shrunk by 40% since 1979. It is now declining at a rate of 12.8% per decade.
If we allow the sea ice loss to continue, scientists say that all the polar bears will soon be gone.
In February 2019, at a time when sea ice in this region is usually growing, an area of ice in the Bering Sea shrank by 566,000 square km - that’s the loss of an area larger than the size of Spain.
Antarctica has lost three trillion tonnes of ice in the past 25 years and is now losing 252 billion tonnes a year - that’s six times more than it was 30 years ago.
Scientists are terrified that parts of what’s known as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are showing signs of an unstoppable and irreversible collapse. That could lock in several metres of sea level rise in the coming centuries, which would be absolutely catastrophic.
Melting glaciers threaten the water supplies of 1.9 billion people living downstream, who depend on fresh water for domestic supplies, irrigation and industry.
What will happen to sea levels and flooding by 2050?
The IPCC predicts that the combination of rising seas and more intense storms will mean in many low-lying megacities and small islands the sort of extreme flooding events previously occurring only once a century could be happening every year.
Rising sea levels are projected to make land currently inhabited by more than 300 million people likely to flood at least once a year.
Without major investment, flooding in cities across the globe is forecast to cost over US$1 trillion per year
Threats to global food supplies
Jim Yong Kim, Former President of The World Bank: “Climate change will lead to battles for food.”
Professor Mark Maslin, Professor of Climatology at University College London: “We know that with increased storms, increased floods, droughts and heat waves, production of food will be more problematic. Ensuring people have access to clean, safe drinking water will become much more difficult.”
Over 124 million people across 51 countries and territories are already facing crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse, requiring immediate emergency action.
95% of what we eat relies on healthy soils, yet, due to intensive farming practices, deforestation, and more extreme weather events, more than half of our planet’s fertile topsoil has been lost in the past 150 years - with a subsequent reduction both in the yields of crops and in how nutritious they are.
Today, topsoil across the globe is being lost a whopping 10–100 times faster than it can be regenerated.
This problem is made worse by the fact that we’ve lost 80% of our earthworms - creatures that usually play a key role in the restoration of degraded soils.
What will happen to global food supplies by 2050?
Experts say we have just 60 years of harvests left.
Land degradation and climate change are predicted to reduce crop yields by an average of 10% globally and up to 50% in certain regions.
If things keep going as they are, it’s predicted that as many as 1.5 billion MORE people – 5 billion people in total – are likely to face shortages of food and clean water, particularly those in Africa and South Asia. That’s one in every two people.
It is estimated that continued loss of pollinating insects would affect more than 75% of global food crop types, risking US$235-577 billion of global crop output annually.
Senior UN official: “We have just 60 years of harvests left.”
Michael Gove: “The UK is 30 to 40 years away from the fundamental eradication of soil fertility.”
Threats to global water supplies
Climate change is making droughts longer and harsher.
Professor Mark Maslin, Professor of Climatology at University College London: “We know that with increased storms, increased floods, droughts and heat waves, production of food will be more problematic. Ensuring people have access to clean, safe drinking water will become much more difficult.”
United Nations world water development report: An estimated 3.6 billion people (nearly half the global population) already live in areas that are potentially water-scarce at least once month per year.
Melting glaciers threaten the water supplies of 1.9 billion people living downstream
The melting of glaciers in both the Andes and the Himalayas threatens the water supplies of hundreds of millions of people, leading to a potential reduction in water supply for more than 240 million people in the Himalayan region alone.
In Europe, the loss of mountain glaciers will have devastating impacts on the provision of fresh water to France, Germany, Spain - such as the Rhone in France and the Rhine in Germany, as well as the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and the Caspian Sea Coast.
Threats to health
Rising temperatures allow the bacteria that cause deadly diarrhoea to thrive, which is leading to increased spread of infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.
Rising temperatures are also creating conditions for tropical diseases to spread to parts of the world where they are not usually seen.
According to The Lancet: “Climate change is the biggest health threat of the 21st century.”
It has been estimated that if all countries met the Paris Agreement to stay below 2C, we could avoid 138,000 premature deaths a year across the entire European region of the World Health Organisation.
Damages to health from air pollution alone cost over 4% of GDP in the 15 countries with highest emissions
The destruction of life on land
Habitat destruction, climate change, overconsumption and pollution, are having a huge impact on the animals, plants and other species that we share our planet with.
A recent report warns that a “biological annihilation” of wildlife is eroding the foundations of economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.
Humanity’s collective action has declined population sizes of thousands of species of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles by an estimated 60% since the 1970s
Land insects have declined by about 43% since the 1960s
More than a quarter of 116,000 assessed species were found to be threatened with extinction, including 25% of mammals
Over 10% of insect species are now threatened with extinction
70 out of the top 100 human food crops that supply about 90% of the world’s nutrition are pollinated by bees, yet there’s been a “drastic decline” in numbers of bumblebees across Europe and North America and bees are now threatened with extinction.
An estimated 1 million more species are threatened with extinction over the next few decades due to human action
Species are going extinct 100 to 1,000 times faster than they would be doing naturally
The 400 vertebrate species that went extinct in the last 100 years should have taken around 10,000 years to disappear naturally.
Scientists say we have entered the Sixth Mass Extinction event.
Losing the diversity of our ecosystems, combined with climate breakdown, will place huge strains upon our social systems and it is feared that this could result in the collapse of our globally interconnected network of civilizations resulting in great suffering and the deaths of many hundreds of millions and perhaps even billions of people.
Sir David Attenborough: “This isn't just about losing wonders of nature. With the loss of even the smallest organisms, we destabilise and ultimately risk collapsing the world's ecosystems - the networks that support the whole of life on Earth.”
Over the next century, the combination of rapid changes in climate and human-caused damage to our land will present terrestrial ecosystems with an environment that is unprecedented in recent evolutionary history - one that has not been seen in at least the last 65 million years.
The destruction of life in our oceans
Marine heatwaves are sweeping oceans “like wildfires”, with extreme temperatures killing swathes of sea-life and destroying crucial species that provide shelter and food to many others - such as seagrass, kelp and corals.
Repeated heat stress has now caused nearly half of the world's corals to bleach and then die.
Coral reefs are some of the most important and diverse ecosystems on the planet, which support up to one million other species and provide food, protection from storms and livelihoods for nearly one billion people.
By 2030 we will have lost 70-90% of our coral reefs.
By 2050, more than 99% of our corals will have been wiped out.
Excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere also causes increases in the acidity of our oceans, which affects marine life, from shellfish like clams and oysters to whole coral reef communities, by removing minerals that they require in order to grow their shells and skeletons.
Ocean acidification is occurring approximately ten times faster than anything experienced during the last 300 million years - jeopardising the ability of ocean systems to adapt.
Our oceans are already more acidic today than they have been in 65 million years.
It is thought that extreme changes in ocean acidity like this may have played a large role in mass extinction events in our prehistoric past.
Rising temperatures also deplete oxygen levels in water, which can lead to suffocation of the sea creatures living within it.
In the last 70 years, low-oxygen ocean zones have grown by more than 4.5 million square km - an area roughly as large as the entire European Union - whilst the number of ocean ‘dead zones’ (areas with exceedingly low oxygen) has increased by a factor of 10.
Air pollution
Professor Thomas Munzel, Specialist in Interventional Cardiology, Risk Factors and Prevention, University Medical Centre of Mainz: “There is an air pollution pandemic”
According to the World Health Organisation, a staggering 9 out of 10 people on our planet breathe polluted air.
Outside air pollution causes 4.8 million extra early deaths a year
Air pollution kills 100,000 Americans every year
Water pollution and plastic
Nitrates from animal waste and agricultural fertilisers can find their way into lakes and coastal waters and cause algal blooms which poison waters and dramatically reduce the growth of plants and fish through a process called eutrophication
300-400 million tonnes of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge, and other wastes from industrial facilities are dumped annually into the world’s waters.
An estimated 300 kg of plastic enters the ocean every second.
Plastic pollution has resulted in the presence of more than 100 million particles of macroplastics in only 12 regional seas worldwide, and 51 trillion particles of microplastic floating on the ocean surface globally.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is halfway between Hawaii and California, contains more than 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, weighs more than 43,000 cars and is three times the size of France.
Off the coast of Oregon, USA, there’s an average of 11 tiny pieces of plastic to every oyster. Nearly all of these microplastic pieces came from clothing fibres or abandoned fishing gear.
A huge proportion of ‘recycling’ ends up in the ocean, buried in landfill or even being burned. Whilst it’s still better to separate recyclable items from landfill, the best option is to reduce the amount of plastic that you use in the first place.
The destruction of forests
Since the onset of agriculture about 12,000 years ago, the number of trees worldwide has dropped by nearly half - the loss of a staggering 3 million trees.
Forest cover is now at only 68% of what it was in preindustrial times.
Around 15 billion trees are now being cut down each year
Deforestation in the Brazilian Rainforest is now occurring faster than three football fields a minute
In July 2019 alone, Brazil lost an area of forest bigger than the size of Greater London.
Deforestation releases the same amount of carbon every year as driving 600 million cars
Deforestation, cow burps and farts, and fertilisers produce more greenhouse gases than all the world’s cars, lorries and planes put together
Livestock farming and food
The IPCC estimates that, if the entire spectrum of food production were factored in - from growing crops to transportation and packaging - up to 37% of all greenhouse gas emissions come from the global food system.
Currently 26% of the planet's ice-free land is being used for livestock grazing
An area the size of Panama (18 million acres) being lost to livestock production each year.
One third of our croplands are currently being used to grow food to feed livestock
Whilst 80% of the world’s farmland is used for livestock, it provides us with less than 20% of the world’s calories and only one third of the protein
Mass displacement, civil unrest and societal collapse
In the first six months of 2019, extreme weather events displaced a record seven million people from their homes.
On our current path, by 2050 it is estimated that there could be up to 200 million environmental migrants
Mass migration and famine are likely to take us towards civil unrest and ultimately war, raising the terrifying possibility of societal collapse.
Lord Nicholas Stern, Professor of Economics and Government: "Climate change is the result of the greatest market failure the world has seen. We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century. What we are talking about is extended world war. People would move on a massive scale. Hundreds of millions, probably billions of people would have to move.”
Professor Joseph Stiglitz, Economist, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences: "The climate emergency is our third world war. Our lives and civilization as we know it are at stake, just as they were in the Second World War."
Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: “Climate crisis is the greatest ever threat to human rights. The economies of all nations, the institutional, political, social and cultural fabric of every state, and the rights of all your people, and future generations, will be impacted.”
Major General Munir Muniruzzaman, former chairman of the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change: “Climate change is the greatest security threat of the 21st century”
Threats to our economy
Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England: “Once climate change becomes a defining issue for financial stability, it may already be too late.”
Mark Carney also said: Efforts to reverse global warming will lead to “major changes” in the UK economy. Companies that fail to respond to climate change “will go bankrupt without question”
Climate justice: the poor will suffer the most, due to the lifestyle of the wealthy
The poorest in the world will suffer the most, when generally they’ve contributed the least to the problem – people who are socially, economically, culturally, politically, institutionally or otherwise marginalized are often highly vulnerable to climate change.
The carbon footprint of the average American is over 250 times that of individuals in several countries in Africa
Dr Sunita Narain, Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment: “You have to understand, this is also a crisis for the world. The fact is that if the poor are suffering today, then the rich will also suffer tomorrow.”
How global governments and banks are making things WORSE
Banks
Bank financing for fossil fuels has actually INCREASED every year since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2016.
In 2018 alone, $654 billion was spent funding fossil fuels
The 35 leading investment banks have financed the fossil fuel industry with £2.2 trillion since the Paris Agreement .
15% of global carbon emissions come from investments made through the City of London
Nine of the world’s top fossil fuel investors of the last three years have global or national headquarters in the City of London.
Among UK-based banks, Barclays and HSBC have given £158 billion to fossil fuel industries since the Paris Agreement, making them the worst offenders in Europe.
According to an NGO Global Witness report in April 2019, over the next decade the global oil and gas industry are planning on spending a further $4.9 trillion on exploration and extraction in new fields.
Governments are funding MORE fossil fuel use
There is enough carbon in already-running oil, gas and coalfields to take us not just over 1.5°C but also way past the 2C “safe” limit set by the Paris Agreement, the impacts of which would be devastating.
Despite repeated pledges to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025, governments from the seven largest advanced economies in the world continue to provide at least US$100 billion each year to support the production and consumption of oil, gas and coal
What can we do as individuals?
Stopping flying
In the words of a recent headline in The Financial Times: “The only way to hit net zero by 2050 is to stop flying.”
A flight from London to Rome produces 22 times more carbon emissions than travelling the equivalent distance by international rail
Return transatlantic flights for a family of four emit the same amount of carbon as 13 years of that family's electricity emissions combined.
Only 18% of the world’s population has ever set foot on a plane, yet everyone pays the price of the emissions.
85% of carbon offsetting schemes fail to reduce emissions from airlines
Food flown into the UK emits a hundred times more carbon dioxide than food that’s been shipped in
Cutting down on meat and dairy
Cutting out livestock and replacing the calories with plant products would free up 76% of the world's agricultural land for reforestation, habitat restoration and other less intensive forms of agriculture.
Going plant-based is the single biggest way that you can reduce your impact on the planet
The latest research shows that cutting out all animal products would give a whopping 28% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors of the economy.
If we want to protect the planet from the dangerous impacts of climate change the amount of beef eaten by people in rich countries such as the UK and the US needs to fall by a whopping 90% and the amount of milk by 60%.
In a single day, the 1.5 billion cows on our planet produce around 680 billion litres of methane
For every 100g of protein, beef produces up to 105kg of greenhouse gases, while tofu produces less than 3.5 kg and nuts, peas and pulses produce even less
Producing a kilo of beef requires 50 times more water than for a kilo of tomatoes, cabbages or potatoes, and a kilo of chicken requires 14 times more.
Reducing food waste
Around 1.3 billion tonnes of household food is wasted every year. That’s equivalent to a mountain over 8 times the height of the Eiffel Tower, and 3km across.
In the UK, nearly 5 million tonnes of household food is wasted every year.
What we need to do now:
Individual actions help, but the answer to Earth’s emergency must involve political, collective action proportionate to the scale of the crisis
Greta Thunberg: "Until you start focusing on what needs to be done rather than what is politically possible there is no hope. We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis. We need to keep the fossil fuels in the ground and we need to focus on equity. And if solutions within this system are so impossible to find then maybe we should change the system itself."
It will cost less than 0.1% of global GDP per year to make the changes humanity needs to adapt to a warming world.
Natural climate solutions, such as the transition to sustainable food and land use systems, could create 70 million jobs by 2030, bring 1 billion people out of poverty and add US$ trillions in productive growth.