1 Billion People Could Die If Global Warming Reaches 2 °C this Century, Scientists Warn
About 1 billion people are on track to die if global warming reaches 2 °C this century, scientists have warned.
This is according to a study published on Energies titled, “Quantifying Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Human Deaths to Guide Energy Policy.”
The study which is based on a recent review of 180 articles on the human death rate of climate change, employed 1000-Ton Rule, according to which a future person is killed every time 1000 tons of fossil carbon are burned (order-of-magnitude estimate).
“If warming reaches or exceeds 2 ◦C this century, mainly richer humans will be responsible for killing roughly 1 billion mainly poorer humans through anthropogenic global warming, which is comparable with involuntary or negligent manslaughter. On this basis, relatively aggressive energy policies are summarized that would enable immediate and substantive decreases in carbon emissions.
The limitations to such calculations are outlined and future work is recommended to accelerate the decarbonization of the global economy while minimizing the number of sacrificed human lives,” the study noted in its abstract.
It stated that despite repeated and ever more serious warnings from scientists, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere continue to increase as fossil fuel combustion increases.
The global carbon emissions are projected to rise to about 39 gigatons per year (Gtpa) in 2025 before maintaining an annual decline as industries clean up their carbon footprint, according to Rystad Energy research and analysis.
Rystad explained that many countries as a measure to ensure energy security, adopted more carbon-intensive fuels in 2022, because of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, which it noted, led to record high carbon emissions.
The new study explained that climate change causes human deaths in diverse ways, which can be divided into direct, intermediate, indirect, and their interactions.
“It has been clear for a decade or more that the final death toll due to anthropogenic global warming (AGW) will be much greater than 100 million, or one million per year for a century—an extreme best case if current death rates from AGW miraculously remained constant at about one million per year (a level that may already have reached).
“Conversely, the final death toll in a 2 ◦C warming scenario will certainly be much less than 10 billion, which is the predicted global human population in 2100 in the absence of AGW.
“Although climate change clearly represents a global catastrophic risk to food supplies, only a small minority are suggesting that 2 ◦C of warming could cause human extinction. Warming of well over 2 ◦C, however, could indeed cause natural climate feedback to get out of control, leading eventually to human extinction.
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Between these extreme boundaries, it is likely more than 300 million (“likely best case”) and less than 3 billion (“likely worst case”) will die as a result of AGW of 2 ◦C.
That prediction is consistent with detailed predictions of climate science summarized by the World Health Organization and their probable consequences for human mortality,” the study informed.
