How to Really Fight Climate Change
Starts with uncovering the root causes of the problem
In order to prevent climate change effects, and safeguard the future of human societies, we must investigate what’s triggering it in the first place. That’s exactly what a group of scientists has been doing while tracing worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
By analyzing data from 1988 to 2015, researchers from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) found out the fossil fuel industry is the largest source of global GHG emissions that are causing climate change. In fact, CDP’s ‘Carbon Majors’ report shows that just 100 fossil fuel producers — including oil, gas, and coal companies — are responsible for 71% of all GHG emissions released to the atmosphere in the last 30 years.
“The fossil fuel industry and its products accounted for 91% of global industrial GHGs in 2015, and about 70% of all anthropogenic GHG emissions [since 1988]. If the trend in fossil fuel extraction continues over the next 28 years as it has over the previous 28, then global average temperatures would be on course to rise around 4ºC above preindustrial levels by the end of the century. This would entail substantial species extinction, large risks of regional and global food scarcity, and could cross multiple tipping points in the Earth’s climate system, leading to even more…
