Carbon dioxide emissions are the primary driver of global climate change. It’s widely recognised that to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, the world needs to urgently reduce emissions. But, how this responsibility is shared between regions, countries, and individuals has been an endless p...oint of contention in international discussions.
This debate arises from the various ways in which emissions are compared: as annual emissions by country; emissions per person; historical contributions; and whether they adjust for traded goods and services. These metrics can tell very different stories.
We teamed up with the YouTube channel, Kurzgesagt, to produce a video which explored these different metrics in detail: ‘Who is responsible for climate change? – Who needs to fix it?’. All of the data and research featured in this video is contained in this article: below we look in detail at the many ways emissions are broken down.
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The Global Carbon Project (GCP) integrates knowledge of greenhouse gases for human activities and the Earth system. Our projects include global budgets for three dominant greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide — and complementary efforts in urban, regional, cumulative, and... negative emissions.
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The global burden of disease associated with air pollution exposure exacts a massive toll on human health worldwide: exposure to air pollution is estimated to cause millions of deaths and lost years of healthy life annually. The burden of disease attributable to air pollution is now estimated to be ...on a par with other major global health risks such as unhealthy diet and tobacco smoking, and air pollution is now recognized as the single biggest environmental threat to human health.
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Overview.
The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest crisis facing the world, but unless humans release their grip on nature, it won’t be the last, according to a new report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which includes a new experimental index on human progress that takes into acco...unt countries’ carbon dioxide emissions and material footprint.
The report lays out a stark choice for world leaders - take bold steps to reduce the immense pressure that is being exerted on the environment and the natural world, or humanity’s progress will stall.
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Compared to the previous five-year assessment period 2011–2015, the current five-year period 2015–2019 has seen a continued increase in carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions and an accelerated increase in the atmospheric concentration of major greenhouse gases (GHGs), with growth rates nearly 20% high...er. The increase in the oceanic CO2 concentration has increased the ocean’s acidity.
The five-year period 2015–20191 is likely to be the warmest of any equivalent period on record globally, with a 1.1 °C global temperature increase since the pre-industrial period and a 0.2 °C increase compared to the previous five-year period.
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The AFOLU Carbon Calculator’s (www.afolucarbon.org) Grazing Management Tool estimates the GHG impacts of activities that attempt to reduce emissions through improved grassland management, changes in livestock management, and/or rewetting organic soils.
This chapter addresses the biogeochemical cycles of carbon dioxide. (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O)
This document presents the World Health Organization Operational framework for building climate resilient and low carbon health systems*. ***The framework's goal is to increase the climate resilience of health systems to protect and improve the health of communities in an unstable and changing clima...te, while optimizing the use of resources and implementing strategies to reduce GHG emissions. It aims to contribute to the design of transformative health systems that can provide safe and quality care in a changing climate.
Implementation of the framework's ten components would help health organizations, authorities, and programmes to be better able to anticipate, prevent, prepare for, and manage climate-related health risks and therefore decrease the burden of associated climate-sensitive health outcomes. Implementing low carbon health practices would contribute to climate change mitigation while also improving health outcomes. Achieving these aims is an important contribution to universal health coverage (UHC), global health security, and specific targets within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The document is a useful resource for decision-makers in health systems, including public health agencies, and other specialized institutions, and for decision-makers in health-determining sectors.
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UNCTAD sets out actions to support least developed countries in the global low-carbon transition
New report says COP27 is an opportunity to accelerate action to achieve mutually beneficial climate and development goals in the world's most vulnerable countries.
Explore the cycling of carbon among carbon reservoirs! Then discover the importance of nitrogen, essential for amino acids and nucleotides, and learn about the nitrogen cycle! Expand details for table of contents. 👇 This video has a handout here: http://www.amoebasisters.com/handouts... Vocabular...y discussed includes ammonification and denitrification.
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Hank introduces us to biogeochemical cycles by describing his two favorites: carbon and water. The hydrologic cycle describes how water moves on, above, and below the surface of the Earth, driven by energy supplied by the sun and wind. The carbon cycle does the same... for carbon!
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Table of Contents
1) Hydrologic Cycle - 1:15
A) Clouds - 2:13
B) Runoff - 3:06
C) Oceans - 3:41
D) Evapotranspiration - 4:25
2) Carbon Cycle - 5:12
A) Plants - 5:48
B) Fossil Fuels - 6:40
C) Oceans - 7:12
D) Global Warming - 7:35
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In Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, Pope Francis acknowledged that “numerous scientists, philosophers, theologians and civic groups have enriched the Church’s thinking” on sustainability. Hospitals and health care organizations may not be an obvious resource for ecological inspirati...on, but they have been responsible for shaping the contours of sustainability as well. While some Catholic health care organizations have already established measures to mitigate climate change, Laudato Si’ challenges all of Catholic health care to reflect the dual concerns for “God’s creation and the poor and outcast.” Concretely, two ways this can be achieved are by cutting carbon emissions and reducing water footprints.
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A practical guide for hospital administrators, health disaster coordinators, health facility designers, engineers and maintenance staff to achieve Smart Health Facilities by conserving resources, cutting costs, increasing efficiency in operations and reducing carbon emissions
There is increasing interest in understanding the role of air pollution as one of the greatest threats to human health worldwide. Nine of 10 individuals breathe air with polluted compounds that have a great impact on lung tissue. The nature of the relationship is complex, and new or updated data are... constantly being reported in the literature. The goal of our review was to summarize the most important air pollutants and their impact on the main respiratory diseases (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, lung cancer, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, respiratory infections, bronchiectasis, tuberculosis) to reduce both short- and the long-term exposure consequences. We considered the most important air pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, ozone, particulate matter and biomass smoke, and observed their impact on pulmonary pathologies. We focused on respiratory pathologies, because air pollution potentiates the increase in respiratory diseases, and the evidence that air pollutants have a detrimental effect is growing. It is imperative to constantly improve policy initiatives on air quality in both high- and low-income countries.
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The combined effects from ambient (outdoor) air pollution and indoor (household, in particular) air pollution cause approximately 7 million premature deaths every year, largely as a result of increased mortality from stroke, IHD, COPD, lung cancer and acute respiratory infections (1). Air pollution ...can occur in both the outdoor and indoor environments. Cook-stoves in homes, motor vehicles, industrial facilities and forest fires are common sources of air pollution. Air pollutants with the strongest evidence for adverse health outcomes include particulate matter (PM; both PM 2.5 (i.e. particles with an aerodynamic diameter
equal to or less than 2.5 μm) and PM10 (i.e. particles with an aerodynamic diameter equal to or less than 10 μm), ozone (O 3), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ), sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) and carbon monoxide (CO). Air pollution is however composed of many more pollutants (1).
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Current evidence that the climate is changing is overwhelming. Impacts of climate change and variability are being observed: more intense heat-waves, fires and floods; and increased prevalence of food- water- and vector-borne diseases. Climate change will put pressure on environmental and health det...erminants, such as food safety, air pollution and water quantity and quality. A climate-resilient future depends fundamentally on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Limiting warming to below 2 °C requires transformational technological, institutional, political and behavioural changes: the foundations for this are laid out in the Paris Agreement of December 2015. The health sector can lead by example, shifting to environmentally friendly practices and minimizing its carbon emissions. A climate-resilient future will increasingly depend on managing and reducing climate change risks to protect health. In the near term, this can be enhanced by including climate change in national health programming and creating climate-resilient health systems.
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Climate change threatens to undermine the past 50 years of gains in public health. In response, theNational Health Service (NHS) in England has been working since 2008 to quantify and reduce its carbon footprint.
This Article presents the latest update to its greenhouse gas accounting, identifying ...interventions for mitigation efforts and describing an approach applicable to other health systems across the world.
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English Analysis on World about Climate Change and Environment, Recovery and Reconstruction and Epidemic; published on 26 Oct 2021 by UNEP