A recent review of 180 studies on climate change underlined that burning the fossil fuels used by humanity will have dire consequences for countless lives in the future.
Over the next century or so, conservative projections indicate that up to one billion individuals could lose their lives due to climate-related disasters, and the toll might even be higher.
This projection, like most future forecasts, relies on a series of assumptions. One such premise is the “1000-ton rule,” a rough guideline that asserts that every thousand tons of carbon emissions from human activities indirectly contributes to a future fatality.
If the world warms by 2°C above the preindustrial global average temperature, a trajectory anticipated in the coming decades, the loss of lives will be substantial. For every 0.1°C increase in temperature from this point forward, the planet could face approximately 100 million deaths.
Joshua Pierce, an energy specialist at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, clarifies that adhering to the scientific consensus of the 1,000-ton rule would translate to a billion premature deaths within the next century due to human-induced global warming. He emphasizes the urgency of taking swift action.
Even in the current era, determining the human mortality rate stemming from climate change is extremely complex.
The United Nations (UN) reports an annual death toll of roughly 13 million individuals due to environmental factors, yet the extent to which climate change directly or indirectly contributes to these fatalities remains unclear.
Certain experts contend that abnormal temperatures on their own might already be responsible for as many as five million deaths per year, although other estimates are more conservative.
The complexity arises from the multifaceted global repercussions of climate change. Consequences such as failed crops, droughts, floods, extreme weather events, wildfires, and rising sea levels can all impact human lives in intricate and nuanced ways.
Predicting the future death toll resulting from these climate-related catastrophes is inherently imprecise, but Pierce and his coauthor, Richard Parncutt from the University of Graz in Austria, believe it is a pursuit worth undertaking.
They argue that quantifying emissions in terms of human lives lost makes the figures more comprehensible to the general public while highlighting the unacceptable nature of our current lack of action.
Pierce underscores the significance of global warming as a life-or-death matter for one billion people.
