• What's the big deal? The impacts of global warming
• Global warming actual and predicted impacts at different temperature levels
• The impacts today at ~1.2°C above preindustrial levels
• Every degree matters
• Predicted impacts of 1.5°C to 4°C by 2100
You are not alarmist if the facts are alarming. The risks due to climate change are alarming — but many are not foregone conclusions. We can tell the next generation and those already impacted today a far better story if we join and help those who are addressing the crisis — and don’t ignore or trivialize — the alarming facts. Every increment matters. We can and must turn things around.
Fossil fuels and other sources of greenhouse gas emissions cause global warming, resulting in an increase in the likelihood, frequency, and/or severity of severe weather events and earth systems disruption, with massive implications for humans and other species.
Climate change we are witnessing today is not caused by natural forces
125,000 yrs ago — the last time that temperatures were above what we are seeing today. We are heading into uncharted territory and wreaking havoc on earth’s life support systems.
The global average temperature from March 2023-February 2024 was 1.56°C above the pre-industrial average. 2023 was the hottest year on record. 2024 may well break that record.
Global warming demonstrably increases the likelihood, severity and/or frequency of climate disasters/severe weather events such as hurricanes, droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, marine heat waves, severe winter storms, torrential rainfalls, typhoons and shifts such as permafrost thawing, loss of arctic sea ice, and the melting of glaciers and ice sheets causing sea level rise, flooding and coastal erosion.
Severe weather and climate events are felt by populations across the globe but greater impacts are experienced by people in developing countries and less advantaged people in developed countries that live in more affected areas and/or may be more vulnerable to climate risks, less able to adapt to climate change and less able to recover from loss and damage.
It is important to note that these populations also have contributed little to the problem of global warming.
Rapid shift in ecosystems that species don’t have time to adapt to.
This leads to adverse impacts for a vast number of plant and animal species as their habitats are lost or become hotter, wetter, drier, more acidic, etc. which can cause changes in population phenology and ranges, including population reductions and local or global extinctions as well as shifts to new areas. These changes impact food webs and ecosystem composition.
Biodiversity loss is tragic in and of itself, but population changes and extinctions also a) bring risks to ecosystems, food systems and water systems that humans depend on (or want), b) reduce ecosystem’s abilities to serve as carbon sinks (removing carbon from the atmosphere) and c) increase risks to human life and health due to disease outbreaks.
Ecosystem loss can also have significant economic impacts on the forestry, fishing, tourism and other ecosystem dependent sectors.
“Tipping point” changes in earth’s interconnected life support systems (cryosphere, biosphere, ocean, and atmosphere) are abrupt and irreversible state shifts in systems that may be self-sustained by feedback loops and may cause runaway climate change and/or destabilizing, catastrophic and/or cascading effects (see examples below.)
Tipping points are triggered once a global warming threshold is passed but given the complexity of earth systems, scientists can only approximate when they may occur.
Often there are early warning signs as the systems weaken but we don’t know exactly when tipping will happen.
(frozen landscapes including polar sea ice, permafrost soils, glaciers, ice sheets)
Ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica — tipping points could occur when the warming ocean and a critical mass of melting has occurred triggering runaway, irreversible melting over the long term via a feedback loop. It is estimated that runaway melting of ice sheets could, at worst, cumulatively lock in unavoidable long-term global sea level rise of over 20 meters, with unavoidable, devastating effects for future generations.
Even at lower levels of melting, sea level rise has widespread and cascading effects.
(Earth’s ecosystems, driving many biogeochemical cycles that keep Earth habitable — forests, savannahs, drylands, lakes, coastal ecosystems, marine environments)
The Amazon and other rainforests — local forest collapse could trigger cascading effects on rainfall cycling, intensifying dry seasons and wildfires, which, in combination with human disturbance and land use changes, can lead to massive forest loss at much larger scales (particularly in the Southwest of the basin.)
Forest dieback can turn the Amazon — a critical carbon sink — into a carbon source, thereby causing more warming, biodiversity loss and dieback.
The Amazon is estimated to contain between 150 and 200 gigatonnes of carbon in biomass and soil organic matter, equivalent to about 15–20 yrs of current global anthropogenic emissions. Under extreme deforestation conditions, this could add an additional 0.3°C by 2100.
Boreal forests — significant diebacks in southern boreal forests (carbon sinks) due to increases in wildfires and insect invasions could lead to a transition to prairie land. The burning and loss of forests will release carbon, causing more warming and dieback.
Marine ecosystems — global warming induced impacts on coastal systems include coral reef ecosystem collapse due to ocean warming and acidification, mangrove and seagrass ecosystems die-off (carbon sink to source) from severe storms and marine heatwaves.
Global warming induced ocean deoxygenation leads to major changes in ocean productivity, Biodiversity, and biogeochemical cycles with possible irreversibility for the deep ocean.
(ongoing long-term changes to ocean and atmospheric circulation)
Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation — The AMOC moves heat from the South to the North Atlantic regulating the mild climate of western and northern Europe and helping to maintain the 1–2°C temperature difference between the global Northern and Southern hemispheres. Climate change (e.g. through changes to ocean temperatures) may cause the AMOC to slow or even stop with severe and widespread consequences.
AMOC collapse would lead to dramatic cooling over most of the Northern Hemisphere (e.g. up to 10°C lower than pre-industrial levels in Europe.) It would also trigger dramatic changes to monsoon patterns impacting storms and rainfall events globally, impact sea level rise around the North Atlantic, change sea ice and permafrost distribution, reduce carbon uptake by the ocean and possibly increase ocean deoxygenation, which will further disrupt marine ecosystems.
North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre (SPG) ocean system could collapse. SPG weakening or collapse would lead to more extreme weather in Europe and colder conditions with major impacts on ecosystems and irreversible impacts on marine and terrestrial biodiversity even if we eventually reverse global warming.
Antarctic Ocean Circulation (AOC) could collapse. AOC collapse would lead to a dryer Southern Hemisphere and wetter Northern Hemisphere, a reduction in the efficiency of the global ocean carbon sink and disruption of marine ecosystems and possible amplification of Antarctic ice shelf warming and melting.
If you take a few seconds to review the news posted on the floodlist site you will get a sense of the ongoing active impact of the crisis based on floods alone.
Not all severe weather in the world is due to climate change. Scientists use attribution science to determine whether and how much climate change increases the likelihood, frequency, or severity of weather events and even the likelihood and severity of specific events.
71%
of 504
of the extreme weather events and trends that occurred between 2000 and 2022, evaluated by scientists using extreme weather attribution models were made more likely or more severe by human-caused climate change.
Of 152 extreme heat events studied
93%
were more likely or more severe due to human-caused climate change. The same was true for 68% of droughts and 56% of extreme rainfall events.
It is estimated that at least
12,000
people lost their lives in 2023 due to climate related disasters.
— up 30% from 2022.
Almost half (45%) of those killed were from countries responsible for 0.1% of the world’s emissions
Recent research attributes
37%
of heat-related deaths to human-induced climate change.
Heat-related deaths among those over 65 have risen by 70% in two decades.
The 2019-2020 southeastern Australian wildfires resulted in the deaths of
33
people. They also caused a further 429 deaths and 3230 hospitalizations due to cardiovascular or respiratory conditions.
Observed mortality from floods, drought and storms was 15x higher for countries ranked as highly vulnerable compared to less vulnerable countries over the last decade. Between 1970 and 2019, 7% of global disaster events were drought related but they contributed to 34% of disaster related deaths, mostly in Africa.
Droughts, floods, wildfires, and marine heatwaves contribute to decreased food availability and increased food prices which threaten food security, nutrition, and the livelihoods of millions of people. Extreme weather events cause economic losses in forestry, crop production, and livestock farming.
3.6
billion people already live in areas highly susceptible to climate change.
In sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and other regions, temperatures have crossed heat tolerance thresholds leading to losses in crops, livestock, fisheries, and aquaculture. Work hours lost due to heat have also increased significantly over the last 2 decades and some regions are already experiencing heat stress conditions that have reached the upper limits of labour productivity, particularly in sectors dependent on outdoor manual labour such as construction and farming.
The shifts in earth’s systems are wreaking havoc even before they reach or cause irreversible tipping point changes. Just as the melting of ice sheets is driving sea level rise with wide-ranging impacts even at low levels of warming, the shifts in other systems are also impacting communities and ecosystems today. The depiction below is a simplified view of the impacts of permafrost thaw.
Importantly, Indigenous Peoples in the Arctic that are more directly dependent on the environment for subsistence are disproportionately negatively impacted already by climate change.
Here are a few videos that remind us about the people and animals behind the numbers.
Human-caused climate change has created conditions not seen in millennia that have altered marine, terrestrial, and freshwater ecosystems all around the world at a rate too fast for species to adapt to.
Half to two-thirds of species have shifted their ranges to higher latitudes, and about two thirds have shifted to earlier spring events in response to warming which has led to emerging hybridization, competition, and mismatches in space and time for predator-prey, insect-plant (including pollinators) and host-parasite relationships. Disease vectors and invasive species are also moving north.
Range shifts reduce biodiversity in the warmest regions and locations where adaptation limits are exceeded. These shifts also homogenize biodiversity in regions receiving climate-migrant species and alter food webs.
Climate change has caused local species extinctions, mass mortality events and loss of resilience in ecosystems.
Local population loss, often as a result of extreme weather events, has been observed in 50% of 1000s of species studied.
Mass mortality has been observed in many species including, for example, corals, mangroves, fruit bats, and some freshwater fish.
Populations are declining in about
50%
of vertebrate species.
70%
of the world’s most biodiverse regions are now under threat due to rising ocean temperatures.
Between 2004 and 2022 there was a
39%
increase in amphibian species on the Red List Index of threatened species.
41%
are now globally threatened.
Coral reefs — thermal bleaching tipping points are already being passed in the majority of coral reef regions and ecosystem collapse is anticipated for all regions by 2040–2050.
We are seeing loss of resilience and regional dieback of mangrove and seagrass ecosystems, for example, in Australia, Panama, and the Maldives. These are important carbon sinks as well.
Here are some examples of species that have recently gone extinct or are highly threatened because of climate change.
Extinct — Bramble Cay melomys — endemic to Bramble Cay, in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia — went extinct because of climate change driven rise in sea levels that destroyed its habitat.
Extinct — Golden toad — endemic to Costa Rica — went extinct due to climate change driven changes in rainfall patterns.
Critically Endangered — Corals — many locations — mass bleaching and die-off primarily due to climate change driven ocean warming and acidification.
Endangered — Chinook salmon — multiple threats including several related to climate change; migration is impacted by reduced water levels in freshwater streams due to loss of snow and glaciers, warmer ocean temperatures make salmon more susceptible to diseases, parasites and predation and rising sea levels make water composition of estuaries that these salmon rely on unsuitable.
Endangered — Green sea turtle — warming temperatures alter their sex ratios to the point that some nesting beaches produce 99% females.
Threatened/Vulnerable — Polar bear — climate change is threatening their habitat due to reductions in Arctic sea ice.
Vulnerable — Adelie penguin — climate change driven Antarctic sea ice melt is destroying the ice habitat of their primary food source (krill.)
Vulnerable — Bumblebees — multiple threats including some related to climate change; bumblebees are being driven northward but with changing phenology of flowering plants as well (due to climate change) they have a shorter foraging period. They are also at risk from changing precipitation patterns (extreme rainfall and droughts), floods and wildfires that can destroy their habitats. (note the same applies to many insect species.)
Critically Endangered — North Atlantic right whales — climate change driven ocean warming and changing ocean currents are impacting their food sources, resulting in a drop in their birth rates as females travel further for food and are exposed to other threats. (note that other whales and many ocean species are also currently adversely impacted by climate change driven changes to the ocean.)
Endangered — Asian elephant — climate change driven increased warming and changes in rainfall patterns (both floods and droughts) are impacting their reproductive capacity.
Amazon Rainforest
75% of the Amazon has experienced loss of resilience since the early 2000s. Localized dieback is occurring.
Boreal Forests
Canadian Boreal forest — evidence of localized dieback with recent failure to regenerate. Warning signs in 2023 of substantial change in forest dynamics and loss of resilience.
Siberian Boreal forest — may have approached a tipping point with widespread regeneration failure following intensification of fires.
Ice Sheets and Glaciers
Ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica — 1–3 metres of sea level rise is likely locked in over 1000-2000 years. This means that even if we stop adding greenhouse gas emissions to the air tomorrow, the heat we have already trapped will continue to melt the cryosphere for sometime, causing unavoidable sea level rise over the next 100s to 1000s of years. In addition to coastal erosion, annual flooding and other impacts, melting would alter monsoon rainfall in West Africa, impacting agricultural production and increasing the risk of displacement for millions of people there.
Mountain glaciers — possible tipping points reached for glacial melting.
Coastal Systems
Coral reefs — thermal bleaching tipping points are already being passed in the majority of coral reef regions and ecosystem collapse is anticipated for all regions by 2040–2050.
Mangrove and Seagrass ecosystems — loss of resilience and regional dieback is occurring in Australia, Panama and the Maldives.
Atmosphere / Ocean Systems
Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) — showing early warning signals and some evidence of weakening.
North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre (SPG) — have reached temperature range (1.1 to 3.8°C) where models suggest collapse is possible.
Antarctic Ocean Circulation (AOC) — weakening and contributing to ice sheet loss and therefore sea level rise.
Permafrost Thaw
Localized tipping is already occurring for permafrost. Even with global reduction in greenhouse gases, permafrost will shrink by 45% by 2100.
Every 0.5°C of global temperature rise will cause clearly discernible increases in the frequency and severity of heat extremes, heavy rainfall events, and regional droughts with associated societal impacts.
In addition to direct negative impacts on death rates, health, livelihoods, displacement, quality of life, and direct damages from disasters, climate change will increase water scarcity, reduce crop yields, reduce fish catch, decrease food safety and nutritional quality and increase the prevalence of human diseases and crop pests.
Risks of extinction of other species increase with each degree of warming as does the risk of hitting one or multiple earth systems tipping points.
The global warming changes at the temperature we land at will persist for centuries, with some trends (e.g. ice sheet melting) persisting long after we hit net zero. The extent of damage will depend in part on how well we adapt, at least at lower temperatures where adaptation is still possible.
However, even at lower temperatures, millions of people and other species are adversely impacted.
Remember, climate change is primarily caused by greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. The longer we burn them the worse things will be. The more quickly we switch to clean energy, the better our outcomes.
Overall, the world has put legislation and policies in place to limit the temperature increase ~3°C so far, but not all said policies have been implemented yet. We need to implement them quickly and we need new, additional policies and action to reduce the temperature increase even further. Ideally we can bring the increase to less than 2°C of warming – which will mean more disasters and risk than what we are seeing today, but an increased likelihood that we will avoid the worst impacts of climate change including many tipping points.
We are paying for the climate crisis in addition to funding it. Let’s pay to address it instead. We know what we need to do.
Climate change is costing Canadians as well.
According to research conducted by the Canadian Climate Institute, climate-related damages from extreme weather events are already costing Canadian households $700 per year in taxes directed towards disaster recovery and infrastructure repairs, rising home insurance premiums and climate related impacts on grocery bills.
Over the last 50 years, severe weather events in Canada have increased from 10s of millions of dollars to billions of dollars per year.
Between 2010 and 2019, insured losses for catastrophic weather events totalled over $18 billion and the number of catastrophic events has more than tripled as compared to the 1980s.
Loss and damage costs have risen from an average of $8.3 million per event in the 1970s to an average of $112 million per event in the 2000s.
Climate costs have climbed to the equivalent of 5-6% of our GDP.
Use this map to track costs of climate-related disasters across Canada.
And while it is important to focus on the more visible and direct costs in loss and damage, community displacement, impacts on Indigenous communities, impacts of health and wellbeing and cost of living, impacts on wildlife and severe threats to specific species, impacts on agriculture and food security, etc. it is also important to realize that most businesses experience or will experience interruptions, supply chain disruption, worker productivity impacts, and other climate risks as well.
The impacts of climate change are only going to increase, and more steeply the less we spend on mitigation (e.g. moving to clean energy) and adaptation (building resilience to withstand the impacts of climate change.)
Climate action to mitigate global warming and prevent the worst impacts of climate change costs money. The amount of change we need to make is no small feat and will require significant investment.
That said, some of the ‘costs’ of the transition are investments in new technology and sustainable jobs, infrastructure upgrades (that are needed anyway) and/or upfront investments that pay for themselves over time.
Utility scale solar PV is now less expensive than fossil fuels. Heat pumps, EVs, and residential solar have upfront costs but pay for themselves and then some over time. Newer, more affordable options are also on the way as solutions scale.
While the costs for existing solutions will continue to decrease over time, the costs to address the crisis will only increase the longer we delay.
With each degree of warming, there is increasing financial need and increasing competition for money across the 3 main areas of action below. We will pay one way or another. Better to invest in mitigating solutions now and avoid greater costs across the board later.
Climate Mitigation — More expensive/wild card/moonshot solutions will be required (e.g. CCS, geoengineering) and more aggressive and costly timescales will be required for deployment.
Also — the worse climate change gets, the more risks there are to current clean solutions. For example, droughts impact the effectiveness of hydropower (sometimes causing countries to fire up climate killing coal); tipping point level changes to weather patterns can impact solar and wind investments; reforestation efforts can be thwarted by wildfires or climate-related damage from invasive species.
Delay also locks in further high-emissions infrastructure (new oil and gas projects, gas lines for new housing developments, new gas cars, etc) for decades or increases the costly risk of stranding assets (where an investment is made in something that is abandoned before the full value is derived from it — e.g. you buy a new gas furnace instead of a heat pump but then have to switch to a heat pump anyway before you get your 10 years-worth of value out of your furnace.)
Climate Adaptation — More adaptation is needed as more regions and populations are impacted and climate risks are greater/more severe.
Also — the worse we let the situation get, the more risks there are to current adaptation solutions. For example, seawalls are only effective up to a certain level of sea level rise/flooding risk, at some point, cities will need to be moved (as is the case for Jakarta, in part due to climate change.)
Finally, some adaptations are more difficult to align with a net zero world at a larger scale — eg. increased use of air conditioning to improve resilience to heat waves causes increases in energy usage.
Loss and Damage — There is greater loss and damage as more regions and populations are impacted and as impacts are more severe and frequent due to increasing temperatures.
Also — the worse we let the situation get, the more likely we will hit catastrophic tipping point changes and collapses in earth systems.
In 2023, the loss and damage fund for developing nations (who contributed little to the problem but experience the worst impacts) that was established at the COP27/28 meetings, held only 0.2% of the irreversible economic and non-economic loss and damage developing nations face each year.
All of this may make you feel as though the problem is too big. In fact, it is so big that it is hard to believe it is actually true.
How could this have happened when people predicted the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions over 50 years ago and have only gained clarity and confidence in these predictions since? Why isn’t everyone already treating it like an emergency? Why are some people still even denying it and treating it as though a few degrees is not a big deal? All good questions.
It is real and it is big. But it gets worse if we don’t roll up our sleeves and get through the energy transition.
We don’t have the luxury of throwing up our hands or turning away from the problem; if everyone had done that the threat we face would literally have been existential. We are not yet out of the woods.
We have many solutions now to alter our current path dramatically for the better. We just need to implement them. (see more further into this website.)
A lot of people are already working on it, but they need us to get on board and join the transition to succeed.
Each person’s actions matter (particularly in the developed world.) We have no choice but to reduce our emissions and stop burning fossil fuels wherever possible.
And there is so much serious recent momentum in the right direction among governments and the private sector.
We can do this.
Once we succeed, we will be living better, healthier, more compassionate, less wasteful, and less polluting lives as well.
Last updated: October 2024
Background and general resources
1. Scott, M. (2014a, September 17). What’s the hottest earth has been “lately”? NOAA Climate. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/what%E2%80%99s-hottest-earth-has-been-%E2%80%9Clately%E2%80%9D
2. Mortillaro, N. (2024, January 9). 2023 was the hottest year on record — by a long shot. CBCnews. https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/2023-hottest-year-on-record-1.7077959
3. Lindsey, R. (2022, October 12). How do we know the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is caused by humans?. NOAA Climate.gov. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/how-do-we-know-build-carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-caused-humans
4. University of Exeter Global Systems Institute. (2023, December 7). Global Tipping Points. https://global-tipping-points.org/
5. IPCC. (2023, March). AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/
6. IPCC. (2023). Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM.pdf
7. McCarthy, J. (2021, July 30). Climate Crisis: What’s the Difference Between a Rise of 1.5, 2, and 3 Degrees Celsius? Global Citizen.https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/the-difference-in-global-warming-levels-explained/
8. Lindwall, C. (2022, October 24). What are the effects of climate change?. NRDC. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/what-are-effects-climate-change#weather
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10. Hausfather, Z. (2024, April 24). State of the climate: 2024 off to a record-warm start. Carbon Brief. https://www.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate-2024-off-to-a-record-warm-start/#:~:text=by%20Carbon%20Brief.-,Carbon%20Brief’s%20projection%20suggests%20that%202024%20is%20virtually%20certain%20to,C%2C%20slightly%20higher%20than%202023
Severe weather and climate events — impacts on humans
11. Ten extreme climate events of 2023. PreventionWeb. (2024, January 16). https://www.preventionweb.net/news/ten-extreme-climate-events-2023
12. Al Jazeera. (2023, December 27). Photos: Natural disasters that plagued the world in 2023. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/12/27/natural-disasters-that-plagued-the-world-in-2023
13. Mlaba, K., Lowery, T., & Banjo, F. (2023, November 7). Shocking photos of extreme weather around the world in 2023 so far. Global Citizen. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/photos-extreme-weather-events-2023-climate-change/
14. Natural Disasters 2023: Year Of Tragic Record-Breaking. EOS Data Analytics. (2024, May 16). https://eos.com/blog/natural-disasters-2023/
15. NASA. (n.d.). International disaster charter activations. NASA. https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ESRS/Disasters/ShowIDCTracking.pl#2012
16. Tsegai, D., Augenstein, P., & Huang, Z. (2023). Global drought snapshot 2023. UNCCD. https://www.unccd.int/sites/default/files/2023-12/Global%20drought%20snapshot%202023.pdf
17. Center for Disaster Philanthropy. (2024, June 10). https://disasterphilanthropy.org/
18. FloodList – floods and flooding news from around the world. (n.d.). https://floodlist.com/
19. Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world. Carbon Brief. (2024, January 15). https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-how-climate-change-affects-extreme-weather-around-the-world/
20. Magramo, K. (2022, June 29). 7 million in Bangladesh Need Aid after “worst floods in memory,” Red Cross says. CTVNews. https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/7-million-in-bangladesh-need-aid-after-worst-floods-in-memory-red-cross-says-1.5967602
21. Dunne, D. (2023, October 25). Analysis: Africa’s extreme weather has killed at least 15,000 people in 2023. Carbon Brief. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-africas-extreme-weather-have-killed-at-least-15000-people-in-2023/
22. AFP. (2023, August 13). Morocco breaks heat record. Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-morocco.html
23. Walsh, M. (2023, June 22). Beijing records hottest June Day as extreme heat sears northern china. Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-beijing-temperatures-extreme-northern-china.html
24. Aubourg, L. (2023, July 14). Record-breaking heat bakes us, Europe, China. Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-record-breaking-europe-china.html
25. AFP. (2023, July 10). Europe in summer: Scorching new normal. Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-europe-summer.html
26. European Commission. (n.d.). Consequences of climate change. https://climate.ec.europa.eu/climate-change/consequences-climate-change_en European Commission. (n.d.). Consequences of climate change. https://climate.ec.europa.eu/climate-change/consequences-climate-change_en
27. World Health Organization. (2023d, October 12). Climate change. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health
28. Lindsey, R. (2023, October 30). Drought parches the central amazon in October 2023. NOAA Climate.gov. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/drought-parches-central-amazon-october-2023
29. Thiem, H. (2023, August 14). Major flood outburst from Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska not possible without climate change. NOAA Climate.gov. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/major-flood-outburst-mendenhall-glacier-alaska-not-possible-without
30. Di Liberto, T. (2021, June 30). Astounding heat obliterates all-time records across the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada in June 2021. NOAA Climate.gov. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/astounding-heat-obliterates-all-time-records-across-pacific-northwest
31. Di Liberto, T. (2020, August 26). Over a million acres burned in California in second half of August 2020. NOAA Climate.gov. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/over-million-acres-burned-california-second-half-august-2020
32. Brackley, C. (2023, September 1). Mapping 100 years of forest fires in Canada. https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/mapping-100-years-of-forest-fires-in-canada/
33. Government of Canada. (2023, November 2). National Wildland Fire Situation Report. Canadian Wildland Fire Information System. https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/report
34. MacCarthy, J., Richter, J., Tyukavina, S., Weisse, M., & Harris, N. (2023, August 29). The Latest Data Confirms: Forest Fires Are Getting Worse. https://www.wri.org/insights/global-trends-forest-fires
35. Wikimedia Foundation. (2024, January 4). 2021 European floods. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_European_floods#:~:text=Germany,-Flood%20damage%20in&text=With%20at%20least%20184%20deaths,it%20difficult%20to%20call%20people
36. WWF Australia. (n.d.). In-depth: Australian Bushfires. WWF Australia. https://wwf.org.au/what-we-do/australian-bushfires/in-depth-australian-bushfires/#:~:text=The%202019%2D20%20Australian%20bushfires,were%20impacted%20by%20the%20blazes
37. Roach, J. (2020, January 8). Australia wildfire damages and losses to exceed $100 billion, AccuWeather estimates. https://www.accuweather.com/en/business/australia-wildfire-economic-damages-and-losses-to-reach-110-billion/657235#:~:text=AccuWeather%20estimates%20the%20total%20damage,on%20a%20variety%20of%20sources
38. Harmstone, A. (2020, February). Five Sectors That Cannot Escape Climate Change. Morgan Stanley. https://www.morganstanley.com/im/publication/insights/articles/articles_fivesectorsthatcannotescapeclimatechange_us.pdf
39. Save the Children International. (2023, December 20). 2023 in review: Climate disasters claimed 12,000 lives globally in 2023. Save the Children International. https://www.savethechildren.net/news/2023-review-climate-disasters-claimed-12000-lives-globally-2023
40. Seppelt, R., Klotz, S., Peiter, E., & Volk, M. (2022, November 10). Agriculture and Food Security under a changing climate: An underestimated challenge. iScience. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004222018235
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Biodiversity impacts with impacts for humans
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43. Waits, A., Emelyanova, A., Oksanen, A., Abass, K., & Rautio, A. (2018, October 11). Human infectious diseases and the changing climate in the Arctic. Science Direct. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412018312005
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45. Mandavilli, A. (2023, February 15). How climate change is spreading malaria in Africa. The New York Times.https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/health/malaria-mosquitoes-climate-change.html
46. Luedtke, J. A., Chanson, J., Neam, K., Hobin, L., Maciel, A. O., Catenazzi, A., Borzée, A., Hamidy, A., Aowphol, A., Jean, A., Sosa-Bartuano, Á., Fong G., A., de Silva, A., Fouquet, A., Angulo, A., Kidov, A. A., Muñoz Saravia, A., Diesmos, A. C., Tominaga, A., … Stuart, S. N. (2023, October 4). Ongoing declines for the world’s amphibians in the face of emerging threats. Nature News. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06578-4
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48. Warren, R., Price, J., Graham, E., Forstenhaeusler, N., & Vanderwal, J. (2018, May 18). The projected effect on insects, vertebrates, and plants of limiting global warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C. Science.org. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aar3646
Earth system shifts and tipping point changes
49. Carrington, D. (2022, September 8). World on brink of five “disastrous” climate tipping points, study finds. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/08/world-on-brink-five-climate-tipping-points-study-finds
50. Igini, M. (2023, August 14). The tipping points of climate change: How will our world change?. Earth.Org. https://earth.org/tipping-points-of-climate-change/
51. IPCC. (2023, March). AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/
52. 2023 Antarctic Sea Ice Winter maximum is lowest on record by a wide margin. NOAA Climate.gov. (2023, September 25). https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/2023-antarctic-sea-ice-winter-maximum-lowest-record-wide-margin
53. United Nations. (2022, January 30). If you’re not thinking about the climate impacts of thawing permafrost, (here’s why) you should be. UN News. https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1110722#:~:text=Back%20in%202019%2C%20the%20United,a%20significant%20loss%20in%20coverage
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Costs of inaction including risks to solutions
57. Cho, R. (2019, June 20). How Climate Change Impacts the Economy. State of the Planet. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2019/06/20/climate-change-economy-impacts/
58. Bowman, J. (2022, January 10). 2021 Weather Disasters Show Mounting Costs of Inaction. NRDC. https://www.nrdc.org/bio/john-bowman/2021-weather-disasters-show-mounting-costs-inaction
59. Limaye, V. (2021, May 20). The Costs of Inaction: The Economic Burden of Fossil Fuels and Climate Change on Health in the U.S. NRDC. https://www.nrdc.org/resources/costs-inaction-economic-burden-fossil-fuels-and-climate-change-health-us
60. Khrennikova, D., & Tanas, O. (2021, April 14). Climate Change Threatens Russia With Billions in Annual Costs. Bloomberg.com. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-14/climate-change-may-be-costing-russia-billions-every-year
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62. Sigal, L., & Raszewski, E. (2023, March 9). Argentina’s “unprecedented” drought pummels farmers and economy. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/argentinas-unprecedented-drought-pummels-farmers-economy-2023-03-09/
63. Nagchoudhary, S., & Paul, R. (2020, May 23). Cyclone Amphan loss estimated at $13 billion in India, may rise in Bangladesh. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asia-storm-india-idUSKBN22W0MT
64. Orr, B., & Li, Q. (2023, October 10). Losses from China disasters reach $42 billion in first nine months of 2023. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/losses-china-disasters-reach-42-bln-first-nine-months-2023-2023-10-09/
65. Martin-Richon, M. (2023, June 14). Climate damages are inflating the costs of living for every Canadian. Canadian Climate Institute. https://climateinstitute.ca/climate-damages-inflating-costs-of-living-for-every-canadian/
66. Sawyer, D., Ness, R., Clark, D., & Beugin, D. (2020, December). Tip of the Iceberg: Navigating the Known and Unknown Costs of Climate Change for Canada. Canadian Institute for Climate Choices. https://climatechoices.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Tip-of-the-Iceberg-_-CoCC-_-Institute-_-Recomendations.pdf
67. Monga, V. (2024, March 27). Canada had designs on being a hydro superpower. now its rivers and lakes are drying up. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/climate-environment/canada-had-designs-on-being-a-hydro-superpower-now-its-rivers-and-lakes-are-drying-up-928ef721
68. Kemp, J. (2023, June 18). Drought-depleted hydropower drives China to turn to coal. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/drought-depleted-hydropower-drives-china-turn-coal-kemp-2023-06-16/
69. Diebel, M. (2024, April 29). Here’s another wacky thing caused by climate change: Less wind to create clean electricity. Climate Crisis 247. https://climatecrisis247.com/energy/heres-another-wacky-thing-caused-by-climate-change-less-wind-to-create-clean-electricity/
Other references
70. Environment and Climate Change Canada. (2023). 2023 Progress Report on the 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan. https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/eccc/documents/pdf/climate-change/climate-plan/healthy_environment_healthy_economy_plan.pdf
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