Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced a sudden increase in the number of Covid-19 cases. Meanwhile, another danger that climate change is lurking and inaction may suffer dire consequences.
Climate emergency
Even though there is news of reduced CO2 emissions into the atmosphere in the early stages of a pandemic, the risk of climate change remains evident. New research has shown that, even after a year of decommissioning and production cessation, global greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase at an unceasing rate. To mitigate the worst effects of climate change, the researchers note, humanity needs to focus purposefully on reducing fossil fuel emissions to close to zero, but even less. In that case, humans also need to find ways to further remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Covid-19 is believed to have contributed to change in planetary climate; Source: topnewsrussia.ru The rapidly changing climate is caused by human activities and this is a scientific conclusion. Back in 1988, scientists put the issue of global warming on the agenda, emphasizing that humanity is facing a “climate emergency”. In 2020, 11,000 scientists around the world released a statement with the same name, calling for immediate action. According to the scientific community, our failure to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere will turn unusually hot waves, storms, wildfires and melting glaciers “a daily thing” and could “make the a large area of uninhabitable Earth ”. Researchers noted that the world leaders’ actions against climate change cannot be called enough and effective. At the same time, the media’s response to the Covid-19 epidemic, such as the use of masks and social isolation, illustrated a useful, effective model of action. People should do the same with climate change. Since CO2 has remained in the atmosphere for decades, the longer humans wait for decisive action, the more extreme the weather, and the more likely it is to pass points of no return or out of control. Covid-19 pandemic and global warming A pandemic may have little effect on climate change, but Covid-19 can certainly teach us a lot about the global threats that exist. Recently, researchers from King’s College London have concluded that countries that are better prepared for a climate emergency have much more advantages in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. More importantly, the scientists also concluded that countries should treat the climate crisis as a pandemic. Research taking data from 110 countries shows that societies “in which people care about each other” cope better with pandemics. The work highlights the urgent need to invest in both climate action and public health infrastructure so countries can better prepare for similar disasters in the future, as Sciencealert writes. By looking at the social, economic and health measures each country is proposing to deal with the pandemic, the King University researchers found a lack of “social cohesion” in America. and Western Europe led to an increase in Covid-19 mortality. More than 71% of emissions since 1988 are believed to have been generated by 100 of the world’s super corporations; Source: topnewsrussia.ru Last year, the economic slowdown caused by the global pandemic cut CO2 emissions by about 7%, which according to some studies, only 10% of this initial sharp drop was due to air travel. reduction. Another study shows that the Covid-19 pandemic will only cool the planet by about 0.01 ° C by 2030. This is a small difference, but the good news is that if combined, then cut. By investing in fossil fuels, we can avoid warming of 0.3 ° C in the future by 2050. “Increased fossil fuel emissions may not be entirely the cause of the increase in methane concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere, but a reduction in fossil fuel emissions,” says chemist Ed Dlugokenski. is an important step to climate change mitigation. Reality shows that, even if people around the world decide to stay home, travel less, fly less and consume less, it’s still not a solution, because 71% more emissions since 1988 have been generated by only 100 of the world’s super companies. These are companies and the systems related to these companies need to be changed. Therefore, it will take more than one global pandemic to address the climate crisis.
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