Climate Chaos
Climate change is the single greatest environmental challenge in history. From scientists to economists, activists to businessmen, politicians to campaigners, the world needs to unite if we are to take this challenge in our stride.
Our world is hotter than it has been in two thousand years. All ten of the hottest years on record have occurred since 1990. Already 150,000 people die each year as a result of climate change and the problem is getting worse. Floods in Mozambique, forest fires in Indonesia, hurricanes in Florida, storms in the UK – these are all exacerbated by climate change.
The world has become dependant on carbon-based fossil fuels. Consequently we’ve seen a rapid increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2); from around 280 parts per million (ppm) before the industrial revolution, to over 380 ppm today. If current trends of fossil fuel use continue, the concentration of CO2 is likely to exceed 700 ppm by the end of this century. According to the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this could lead to global warming of up to 6.4°C, which would spell the end of humanity as we know it.
If temperatures rise as the IPCC predicts, deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years. Droughts and wildfires will occur far more often, and more than a million species could be driven to extinction by 2050. Global sea levels could rise by more than six metres with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica. If current trends continue, this sea-level rise is likely to happen by the turn of the century, which would result in 100 million people losing their homes.
However it’s not all doom and gloom - there are solutions to the problem. By adopting Contraction & Convergence, the will have a framework in place to solve climate change once and for all. So let’s make it happen…
