STOCKHOLM — Global warming is a scientific fact as much as the hole in the ozone layer or Earth’s orbit around the sun. Global temperature records have been broken three years running. Arctic Sea ice is declining rapidly. Sea levels are rising. For some societies, such as small island nations in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, environmental havoc is not a distant threat. It has arrived.
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| In front of the financial district of Pudong amid heavy smog in Shanghai in 2015. |
To reduce the risk of a global environmental catastrophe, and to avoid reversing the course of human progress, the world must urgently bend the curve of global emissions away from fossil fuels. Global warming must be kept below an increase of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit); beyond that we will face major social and economic consequences.
The math to keep the increase below that critical level doesn’t get much simpler. Emissions must peak no later than 2020, and we must reach a fossil-fuel-free world economy by 2050.
Read the 2017 story from The New York Times by Johann Rockstrom - “Why the World Economy Has to Be Carbon Free by 2050.”
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