Climate change is real. We now know that for certain. We are already experiencing doomsday scenarios that climate scientists had projected for the distant future. The UN’s top climate science body, Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its latest Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science
Basis, only confirms what we already know and see in the world around us: wildfires triggered by extreme heat and moisture loss; devastating floods caused by extreme rain events; and tropical cyclones powered by the changing temperatures between the
sea and land surface. The report also clearly says that human activities, for certain, are to be blamed for these climate events. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) have warmed the planet beyond its tolerance level. In May 2021, the atmospheric CO2 level reached 419 parts per million (ppm), as measured by the US’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory
in Hawaii. This is nearly 45 per cent above IPCC’s accepted pre- industrial baseline of 278 ppm in 1750.
What is even more worrying is that the world is running out of carbon space and time to fix the problem. Currently, we release about 36.4 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 every year into the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning and cement manufacture. IPCC says we need
to budget our carbon emissions based on the planet’s processing ability to keep the average global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels—the guardrail of keeping the world safe from catastrophic climate impacts. As per its estimate provided in 2018, the world needs to cut emissions by 45–50 per cent compared to the 2010 levels by 2030, and by 2050 turn carbon net-zero—emit only what can be “soaked up” by natural sinks like forests or oceans or what can be “cleaned” through still-experimental technologies, like carbon capture and storage.
AR6 says that starting in 2020, the world is left with a total carbon budget of 400 GtCO2 for all time to come. This means that once we cross this threshold, whenever we cross it, we are headed for 1.9 degree rise.

Source: Centre for Science and Environment