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Poor GovernanceĪccording to economists like Nicholas Stern, the climate crisis is a result of multiple market failures. You might also like: The Tipping Points of Climate Change: How Will Our World Change? 2. That is why it is absolutely imperative that we start now to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, invest in renewable energy sources, and phase our fossil fuels as fast as possible. However, even if all greenhouse gas emissions were halted immediately, global temperatures would continue to rise in the coming years. The climate crisis is causing tropical storms and other weather events such as hurricanes, heatwaves and flooding to be more intense and frequent than seen before. S cientists are constantly warning that the planet has crossed a series of tipping points that could have catastrophic consequences, such as advancing permafrost melt in Arctic regions, the Greenland ice sheet melting at an unprecedented rate, accelerating sixth mass extinction, and increasing deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, just to name a few. Increased emissions of greenhouse gases have led to a rapid and steady increase in global temperatures, which in turn is causing catastrophic events all over the world – from Australia and the US experiencing some of the most devastating bushfire seasons ever recorded, locusts swarming across parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, decimating crops, and a heatwave in Antarctica that saw temperatures rise above 20C for the first time. The last time carbon dioxide levels on our planet were as high as today was more than 4 million years ago.
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Here are some of the biggest environmental problems of our lifetime, from deforestation and biodiversity loss to food waste and fast fashion.Īs of May 2023, CO2 PPM (parts per million) is at 420.00 and the global temperature rise is 1.15C compared to pre-industrial levels. While the climate crisis has many factors that play a role in the exacerbation of the environment, there are some that warrant more attention than others.
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