10 climate change facts everyone should know
Climate change is an issue that will affect all life on planet Earth. While the topic is often covered by the media and debated by politicians at every end of the spectrum, it can be difficult to grasp the facts about climate change. So how is climate change defined? And what does the science tell us? Here’s ten climate change facts that every person should know.
Climate Change is happening now
Climate Change is most often defined by rising temperatures and melting icecaps. Although, there are countless other ramifications that unmitigated climate change will have on humanity.
Eleven percent of the world’s population is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change right now, the Dara Climate Vulnerable Forum reports. Since 1980, the planet has had a 50-fold increase in the number of dangerous heat waves. In Europe, the five warmest summers since 1500 have occurred since 2002.
This has led to food insecurity, with 100 million of the 800 million people who are undernourished today hungry due to climate shocks. Flooding has quadrupled since 1980 and doubled since 2004. The United Nation reports that our warming speed is faster than any point in Earth’s history.
Freshwater will run out by 2040 if we do not drastically change our water usage
According to The World Counts, contributed to by the World Resource Institute, humanity’s needs of freshwater will outweigh our supply by 2040, if our water usage levels continue. Over 90% of our water use is attributed to food and products, with animal agriculture using up to one third of all water.
With every degree of warming above pre-industrial levels, crop yields decline by 10%
A warming planet means less fertile soil, and this is disappearing at a rate of 75 billion tons each year. The United Nations projects that the planet will need two times as much food in 2050 as it does today, and meat and dairy consumption needs to be cut by half before then, if we want to feed everyone.
2030 is our deadline to avoid the worst impacts of climate change
In 2018, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that 2030 is the last chance to prevent the worst impacts. Global carbon pollution must be cut in half by then to avoid catastrophic, irreversible damage to our planet.
We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction
While extinction is a natural occurrence, it is currently happening at nearly 1000 times the normal rate, as is reported by the UN. Research suggesting that dozens of species of plants and animals are going extinct every day. By 2050, 30-50% of Earth’s species will have disappeared.
The ocean accounts for at least half of our oxygen
UNESCO reports that one quarter of carbon emitted by humans is absorbed by oceans, and in the past 50 years, have absorbed 90% of global warming’s excess heat. While this may sound like a good thing, this leads to ocean acidification, which affects phytoplankton, disrupts the ecosystem and could add between a quarter to a half degree of warming.
Most extreme weather events in the last two decades were influenced by humans
Data gathered by Carbon Brief from 230 studies into “extreme event attribution,” found that 68 percent of all extreme weather events studied in the last 20 years were impacted by humans. These weather events increased in frequency or severity by human-caused climate change.
The difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees is stark
Earth is expected to hit 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels between 2030 and 2050. The IPCC Report Impacts of 1.5°C of Global Warming on Natural and Human Systems projects that between 70 and 90 percent of warm water tropical coral reefs will disappear at 1.5 degrees warming. At 2 degrees, this is expected to rise to 99 percent. At 2 degrees severe heat events will become 2.6 times worse, species loss 2 to 3 times worse, melting permafrost that stores vast quantities of carbon will get 38 percent worse and sea levels will rise 0.06 metres more.
Climate change will create more refugees
Currently, climate change has produced 22 million refugees a year since 2008. This number is projected to drastically increase, with 200 million climate refugees expected by 2050 according to the UN and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). The rise in sea levels, increased severity and frequency of extreme weather events, water and food shortages and other impacts that are projected will cause many people to be displaced.
Rising sea levels will see whole swathes of land underwater
Small Island Developing States or SIDS will be the first countries in danger of disappearing due to climate change. The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs reported that these 52 territories have very little protection against natural disasters. Islands like the Maldives, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Nauru, Fiji Islands and Marshall Islands are facing the threat of partial or complete inundation.