How do you tell the most important ‘story’ in the world? It’s a story that most ordinary citizens don’t want to think about, because it is complex and involves invisible gases. It’s the story of the amount of carbon we can ‘afford’ to put into the atmosphere, taking account of where it might go and what it might do. This story is called the carbon budget and it profoundly challenges our assumptions about burning oil and gas to fuel our comfortable lifestyles. And the carbon budget varies depending on the extent to which human society is prepared to take risks on the chance of increased heatwaves, droughts, flooding, sea-level rise and human migration.
This video illustrates the carbon budget available if we want to keep within the 1.5 deg C target of the Paris Agreement.
At the current emissions level there is a 50% chance global warming will exceed 1.5 degrees C by 2023. This was the primary message that the Global Carbon Project (GCP), based at Exeter University, wanted to get across not just to policymakers at the Bonn Climate accord in June 2024, but also to the wider public. So they commissioned Real World Visuals to convey the essence of the results after they have done all the laborious measurement, compilation and calculation. And that, as usual, comes down to several short films visualising a volume of carbon dioxide gas.
This video shows the current global emissions of the USA, EU, China and the rest of the world in 1000 metric ton blocks in real-time - 1315 tons per second, 79,000 tons every minute.
Sadly, if delegates at the Bonn meeting had really grasped the essence of the problem, and its urgency, perhaps they would not have settled for such a muddled and unpromising outcome from their various discussions. Politicians need to realise that bold action is now required as this ‘story’ is likely to overshadow everything else in the coming years. And citizens, who will be voting for politicians in the coming months, need to know this too. So please share videos and screen-shots (below) widely!
Notes
A compilation of the two videos together is available here.
The Global Carbon Project (GCP), based at the University of Exeter, was created to bring together a global consortium of scientists to establish a common and mutually agreed understanding of the Earth carbon cycle. Its aim was to use this knowledge to influence policy action to slow down and ultimately stop the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.