These Are the 5 Facts You Need to Know About the Paris Climate Summit

We live in a G-Zero world, one with a lack of true global leadership. Just consider climate change—the 250 million people set to be displaced by unchecked warming in the next few decades alone will make Syria’s humanitarian crisis look like a blip. And yet the hopes for a unified global response are slim. Still, negotiators at the UN climate change conference in Paris seem likely to find ways to move the needle even in a leadership vacuum. Here’s what you need to know. (UN) 1. Where We Are Today The world is now more than halfway toward exceeding the 2 degree Celsius threshold scientists have warned could make global warming catastrophic and irreversible. The World Health Organization estimates that climate change is already responsible for 141,000 deaths annually—by 2050, that number is projected to rise to 250,000. The World Bank expects global warming to push 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030. As ocean temperatures rise and glaciers melt, weather-related disasters will grow in both frequency and severity. In the last two decades, floods have hit 2.3 billion people, mostly in Asia. Droughts have affected more than 1 billion people, primarily in Africa. Heat waves have killed nearly 148,000 people, the majority of them in Europe. Wildfires have affected 108,000 people and have cost more than $11 billion dollars in damages to the U.S. No part of the world is immune. (Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, The New York Times) 2. ...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized China climate change E.U. Economy Environment global warming paris Paris climate summit Pollution U.S. Source Type: news