Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink
Last year, a record 30.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuel – a rise of 1.6Gt on 2009, according to estimates from the IEA regarded as the gold standard for emissions data.
Professor Lord Stern of the London School of Economics, the author of the influential Stern Report into the economics of climate change for the Treasury in 2006, warned that if the pattern continued, the results would be dire. “These figures indicate that [emissions] are now close to being back on a ‘business as usual’ path. According to the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s] projections, such a path … would mean around a 50% chance of a rise in global average temperature of more than 4C by 2100,” he said.
“Such warming would disrupt the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people across the planet, leading to widespread mass migration and conflict. That is a risk any sane person would seek to drastically reduce.”
There’s a lot more. I don’t have the will to talk about it though.
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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Thanks for catching this. I have just been reading the PLAnyc. NY city" plan for adressing global warming, and I just returned from a 1-1/2 week visit there where I say a lot of hybrid taxis and lots of diesel/electric hybrid busses.
The Plan NYC has, and the on site evidence gives me a lot of hope that some parts of the world are moving in a decent direction.
We all dont have any choice but to keep working on all of this stuff – especially the huge carbon footprint of the use of enormous amounts of fossil fuels.
The fossil fools of the energy Cos will keep trying to make us look elsewhere. Don't letum.
Stan SCobie, Binghamton, NY
This quote by Greenpeace UK stood out for me:
"This news should shock the world. Yet even now politicians in each of the great powers are eyeing up extraordinary and risky ways to extract the world's last remaining reserves of fossil fuels – even from under the melting ice of the Arctic.
You don't put out a fire with gasoline. It will now be up to us to stop them."