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The climate emergency 2026 Why climate change is such a concern Key climate information Action needed

Key climate information

Mortality and other harms from climate change

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Young people are pleading for action: 10 key messages Greta Thunberg's "blah blah blah" speech, Milan 2021

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What should have been done by governments and wider society in response to climate change

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UK average GHG emissions

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The global carbon budget for 1.5°C runs out in 2030 UK carbon budget calculations 2026

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Zero Hour and the CAN Bills: Climate urgency denial National Emergency Briefing: Omissions & inconsistencies: Corrections needed

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Counting consumption rather than territorial CO2 emissions International comparisons

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Climate inaction and delay: Shambles or conspiracy? All sections of society have been failing Cognitive biases, flawed reasoning, fallacies and denial dominate opinions and decision making Climate denial: literal, interpretive and implicatory Government failures Climate science briefing for MPs by Patrick Vallence et al was seriously misleading House of Commons Library reports on climate change are seriously misleading MPs
Campaigning failures Friends of the Earth: Climate denial: Court cases 2022-25 UK Heath Alliance on Climate Change: Climate Denial: Correspondence Client Earth: Climate denial

Action needed

Why make climate action an overriding priority Reliable (safe system) decision making and policy making
Allocation of the global carbon budget between countries UK carbon budget calculations 2025 Carbon budget calculations for the average country What would GENUINE climate leadership look like? Reduce your carbon footprint: at least 10% per year

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Climate science briefing by Prof Kevin Anderson

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Checklist for auditing consistency with the IPCC Challenging fallacies Common climate fallacies Ethical Consumer Climate Gap reports: Correspondence

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Posts in 2023-2024:

Reasons to be very concerned

Key points on the climate emergency

Human activity has changed the climate

The climate has changed: The physics Mankind has changed the climate

Time is running out

UK carbon budget calculations 2024 The UK's share of the global carbon budget runs out in 2 years

System failures

UN Secretary-General: "Government leaders are lying" The UK Net Zero 2050 strategy would take three times the UK's share of the global carbon budget

Pleas from those most affected

Pleas from the world's poorest

Action needed

UN Secretary-General: "A grassroots movement that cannot be ignored"

Actions needed

Climate emergency ten-point action plan

1. Overall aim and priority

International commitments given Why 1.5°C?

2. Global strategy: Limit further emissions to 400 billion tonnes CO2

Global strategy: Limit further emissions to 400 billion tonnes CO2

3. The UK carbon budget

The maths of staying within the UK's carbon budget: Halve emissions every 3 years Double digit percentage annual emission cuts "Zero carbon sooner" CO2 budget report from CUSP

4. Reviewing progress against the CO2 budget

Global emissions are still rising

5. Identifying reasons for lack of progress on climate change

Why progress has been so poor: Summary The UK's Seven Principles of Public Life Decision making has not followed the science It is a system failure rather than a failure of individuals Climate urgency denial Auditing consistency with the IPCC: Summary for selected groups

5a. Governments

UK Climate Change Committee: Not consistent with the IPCC UK Government fallacy: overclaiming the reduction in UK CO2 emissions

5b. Media deficiencies

The BBC: Climate denial The Guardian: Climate denial The British Medical Journal: Climate denial

5c. Campaigning deficiencies

Friends of the Earth: Climate denial 2: Response to CCC annual report 2023 Fridays for Future: Consistent with the IPCC Climate Uncensored: Consistent with the IPCC Campaign against Climate Change: Consistent with the IPCC Ethical Consumer Magazine: Climate denial Climate Emergency UK: Climate denial Sustrans: Climate denial

6. Improve decision making

7. Actions by sector

Specific actions needed: Summary National governments Local government

False solutions to be avoided

'Offsetting' Planting trees Tree planting claims by Zurich scientists were withdrawn Electric vehicles: not an immediate solution

8. Individuals

Individuals

9. Ensuring good decision making

Challenging fallacies

UK Government

The 'Net Zero 2050' UK Government fallacies

Ethical Consumer: Inconsistency with the IPCC in the Climate Gap reports

Critique of report methodology

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Civil disobedience in a democracy: Q and A

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Consistency with the IPCC

Climate urgency fallacies

Action needed

Passivhaus home standards

Challenge fallacies and malpractice

Challenge fallacies, incompetence and malpractice

Ensuring good decision making

Assessing performance on the climate emergency Climate Urgency Realism or Denial score Climate urgency denial in UK Government scientists

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Posts in 2020-2021:

Action needed

'Hydrogen power' is not the answer

Ensuring good decision making

Civil disobedience and the law Extinction Rebellion

Technicalities by sector

Basic UK energy and greenhouse gas statistics References

Posts in 2019:

The climate crisis and what to do about it

Climate change: the basics Simple solutions for the climate crisis, which should have been implemented already

Action needed

Local government: Make walking safe Organisations

Awareness raising

Leaflets, video

Reasons for optimism

Decline in UK domestic aviation Decline of domestic aviation in Sweden

Standards of administration in a democracy

Effective planning

Performance assessments

BEIS is not telling the truth on carbon emissions Transport for the North: Failing on the climate crisis Steve Rotheram: failing on the climate crisis Wirral Council's emission reduction trajectory

Mortality and other harms from climate change

Mortality from climate change

Two studies have estimated how many climate related deaths will happen as a result of CO2 emitted. Both estimates were around one climate death for each 4,000 tonnes CO2 emitted.

• A paper published in Nature [1] estimated one death per 4,434 tonnes CO2. The paper pointed out that this is equivalent to the lifetime emissions of 3.5 average Americans. This was reported in The Guardian [2].
• A second paper [3] gave an estimate of one death per 1,000 tonnes carbon burnt - which releases 3,700 tonnes CO2.

Climate-related deaths from the UK's CO2 emissions: 150,000 per year
The UK's total CO2 emissions, including imports and aviation, are currently about 9 tonnes CO2 per person per year - giving a total for the 68 million UK population of about 600 million tonnes CO2 each year. This means that each year's CO2 emissions from the UK will result in around 150,000 climate deaths, using the figure of 1 death per 4,000 tonnes CO2 emitted.

UK aviation CO2 emissions are around 0.84 tonnes per person per year [4]. So the total mortality cost will be 14,000 climate related deaths for each year that UK aviation continues (equivalent to a weekly plane crash at a UK airport killing 270 people).

Other estimates
The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries has published estimates of global deaths at various temperature rises, though without giving a rationale for the estimates [5]:

Global warming	Global mortality
1.5°C	80 million
2°C	800 million
3°C	4 billion

Loss of habitable land due to heat

Information comes from a study of unprecedented heat (mean annual temperature at least 29°C) [6]. Some key conclusions are that

• global warming has already exposed about 9% of the world's population (over 600 million) to unprecedented heat
• current policies, leading to global warming of around 2.7°C, would leave about one third of the world's population exposed to unprecedented heat
• one person will be exposed to unprecedented heat for roughly every 1700 tonnes CO2 emitted
• around 2.7 average EU citizens or around average US citizens emit enough CO2 in their lifetimes to expose one future person to unprecedented heat, and the average citizen of Qatar emits enough CO2 in their lifetime to expose roughly 2.8 future people to unprecedented heat.

Damage to the natural world

As global warming worsens, the effects become more severe.

For example, the SR15 report explains that

• the majority (70-90%) of warm water (tropical) coral reefs that exist today will disappear if global warming reaches 1.5°C (reference [7], p179)
• 99% of corals will be lost with warming of 2°C above the pre-industrial period (reference [7], p230).

Rising sea levels

Sea levels have risen as polar ice caps and glaciers have melted.

Sea levels have already risen about 20cm compared to pre-industrial levels, and are currently rising about 4cm per decade. As the earth warms up, sea levels rise more quickly.

Even once the burning of fossil fuels has ended, sea levels will continue to rise, because the high temperatures will remain high, and ice will continue to melt.

The risks of catastrophic tipping points are steadily increasing

If global warming continues, and the climate continues to deteriorate, tipping points in the climate system will be passed and changes will become abrupt and/or irreversible [10][11].

The effects on the planet including mankind will then accelerate.

The most important tipping points are

• melting of ice e.g. irreversible meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet
• disruption of ocean currents and atmopheric circulation e.g. collapse of the oceanic Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)
• biosphere tipping points including large-scale dieback of the Amazon rainforest.

References

[1]	Bressler RD (2021) The mortality cost of carbon. Nature Communications (12) 4467 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24487-w

[2]	Three Americans create enough carbon emissions to kill one person, study finds (2021) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/29/carbon-emissions-americans-social-cost

[3]	Parncutt R (2019) The Human Cost of Anthropogenic Global Warming: Semi-Quantitative Prediction and the 1,000-Tonne Rule Frontiers in Psychology (20) 2323 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02323/full

[4]	Our World in Data (2020) https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-flying

[5]	Planetary solvency - finding our balance with nature (2025) Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (Appendix 1) https://actuaries.org.uk/document-library/thought-leadership/thought-leadership-campaigns/climate-papers/planetary-solvency-finding-our-balance-with-nature/ (accessed 31 May 2025)

[6]	Lenton et al (2023) Quantifying the human cost of global warming Nature Sustainability https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01132-6

[7]	IPCC SR15 report: Chapter 3: Impacts of 1.5°C of Global Warming on Natural and Human Systems (2019) https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SR15_Chapter3_Low_Res.pdf

[8]	Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/a-large-group-of-fish-swimming-over-a-coral-reef-gMjSMGUr85s

[9]	Wikimedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bleached_coral_reef.png

[10]	Timothy M. Lenton (2021) Tipping points in the climate system https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wea.4058 (accessed 22 Jan 2026)

[11]	Bill McGuire (2023) The point of no return: how close is the world to irreversible climate change? Responsible Science journal, no.6 https://www.sgr.org.uk/resources/point-no-return-how-close-world-irreversible-climate-change (accessed 22 Jan 2026)

First published: 15 Apr 2023

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