GLOBAL WARMING (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 – Env & Eco)

Context: If global warming reaches or exceeds two degrees Celsius by 2100, it could lead to deaths of roughly a billion people, quantifying future harms caused by carbon emissions has found as per study  published in journal Energies.

Key Points

• The analysis suggested aggressive energy policies to enable immediate and substantive decreases in carbon emissions.
• It also recommended a heightened level of government, corporate and citizen action to accelerate the decarbonisation of the global economy, aiming to minimise the number of projected human deaths.
• The oil and gas industry, which includes many of the world’s most profitable and powerful companies, directly and indirectly emits more than 40 per cent of carbon emissions.
• The researchers found that peer-reviewed literature on the human mortality costs of carbon emissions converged on the “1,000-tonne rule”. 

oThe rule is an estimate that a future person is killed prematurely every time 1000 tonnes of fossil fuels are burned.

Global Warming

• “Global warming" denotes the general alteration of Earth's climate, characterized by a substantial rise in the planet's temperature due to human activities occurring within a relatively brief timeframe.
• Even a minimal increase of one degree in temperature qualifies as an instance of global warming. An increment of 0.4 percent over a century is regarded as a matter of concern.
• The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), comprised of 2500 scientists, has monitored the Earth's temperature increase, and their findings indicate a 0.6-degree warming within a mere 9-year period.