1トンの二酸化炭素を大気中に放出するごとにもたらされる損失を貨幣価値に換算する「炭素の社会的費用」に、気候変動に起因する損失や異常高温によって失われる人命のコストを加えた数値が論文として発表された。推定では世界経済が2050年までに完全に「脱炭素化」して二酸化炭素排出量がゼロになると、全世界で7,400万人が熱波関連の死から救われるという。あくまで思考実験という位置づけの論文だが、実世界の政策にも影響を及ぼすかもしれない。
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Tourists evacuated from Pescara as Italy records more than 800 wildfires
Wildfires burn across Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey in heatwave bringing temperatures above 40CAt least five people have been wounded and holidaymakers evacuated after wildfires devastated a pine wood near a beach in Pescara, Italy, as one of the wo…
UK’s net zero goal ‘too far away’, says No 10 climate spokesperson
Allegra Stratton says carbon emissions must change ‘right now’, as UK moves towards 2050 goalThe UK’s goal of tackling the climate crisis by reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 is “too far away”, the prime minister’s climate change spokespers…
The Guardian view on adapting to global heating: risks must be faced | Editorial
Investment in flood defences is overdue. But progress on climate resilience requires confronting vested interests too Nothing about the climate crisis is easy. The challenge of adapting to global heating and the climate disruption it causes is particu…
Brexit and Covid have created the perfect moment for the politics of crackdown | John Harris
We feel besieged and imperilled, and the Johnson government is seizing the chance to weaken our most fundamental libertiesIf you were wondering when the widely predicted post-Brexit dystopia might move beyond the imaginings of TV scriptwriters and into…
Ana Raquel Nunes: ‘Extreme weather reveals the fragility of people and places’
The environmental social scientist and expert on the impact of heatwaves on why we must prepare for dangerous heatAna Raquel Nunes is a senior research fellow at Warwick medical school who studies the links between global heating and human health. She …
Doggerland: Lost ‘Atlantis’ of the North Sea gives up its ancient secrets
The land mass that linked Britain to continental Europe was rich in early human life until it floodedThe idea of a “lost Atlantis” under the North Sea connecting Britain by land to continental Europe had been imagined by HG Wells in the late 19th centu…
Converted offices pose ‘deadly risk’ in heatwaves, experts warn
Weakened planning rules has resulted in fewer checks on post-Covid urban redevelopment, despite worsening climate crisisThe conversion of offices into flats in urban centres poses a “potentially deadly risk” to occupants as the intensity of heatwaves r…
Adapt or die. That is the stark challenge to living in the new world we have made | David Wallace-Wells
We need to decarbonise and fast. But ‘adaptation’, the ways in which we protect people from the crisis, is not a dirty wordIt won’t be enough. It can’t be. From here, even an astonishing pace of decarbonisation will still deliver us a warmer world than…
How climate crisis made my British butterfly hunt a race against time
The naturalist Stephen Moss finally achieved his aim to see all 61 of the UK’s butterfly species. But those that thrive on the margins could vanish as temperatures riseIt was a long walk up the steep, rocky path, on an unexpectedly warm day – but well…