Deadly heat

Caro Sicking for nonfiXe

Food for thought: the price of global heating in lives. The lifetime emissions of 3.5 average Americans (4,434 metric tons) cause one climate death between 2020 and 2100. 3.5 Average Americans equal the carbon footprint of 146.2 average Nigerians over life.

Unsurprisingly, the price of global warming is to be paid in lives of the poorest in the hottest areas, the ones who emit the least. The above is according to a recent study (29 July 2021) on the mortality cost of carbon.

Daniel Bressler of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, who wrote the paper, points out that the figures for expected deaths aren’t set in stone and may well be a ‘vast underestimate’, since the study does not take flooding, food shortages, interstate wars and other climate crisis related impacts into account.

The report is meant to support policy makers, but companies and households as well, in making decisions on their activities, choices and regulations with regard to global warming and reach full decarbonization by 2050.

The mortality cost of carbon, R. Daniel Bressler, Columbia University.

Bressler, R.D. The mortality cost of carbon. Nat Commun 12, 4467 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24487-w