The Climate Book, Day 1

Day 1, of The Climate Book posts: I was going to wait and do this as the 2023 focus of my daily posts on LinkedIn, but I can’t wait that long to start. So today, I’m kicking off one post per day, summarizing each and every part and essay included in Greta Thunberg’s “The Climate Book.”

Today, it’s the prologue. A collection of basic climate facts. Told both in text and in amazing graphics. We should all understand this, and have these metrics in our minds and at our fingertips.

1. Average global temperatures have risen approximately 1.2 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial age: In the IPCC 2021 report a group of 234 top scientists from 66 countries concluded that “it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.”

2. Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities have risen to concentrations in the atmosphere that have not been seen in millions of years, from a time when trees grew at the South Pole and the sea level rose by 20 metres.

3. Despite dire warnings in the 1980’s and 1990’s, we have emitted more CO2 since 1991 than in the rest of human history: According to the IPCC estimate, our remaining carbon budget for a 67% chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius at the beginning of 2020 was 400 gigatonnes. At the current rate of emissions, we will exceed this budget before 2030.

4. Some countries are vastly more historically responsible for emissions than others, with the U.S. and China emitting 660 gigatonnes between 1850 and 2021.

5. Based on current policies, the IPCC estimates that global warming will reach 3.2 degrees Celsius by 2100.