COP28: How 7 policies could help save a billion lives by 2100

By Joshua M. Pearce, Western University

In a recent review of more than 180 peer-reviewed articles — which I conducted with fellow researcher Richard Parncutt — we found that a scientific consensus has formed around the so-called 1,000-ton rule.

The 1,000-ton rule states that a person is killed every time humanity burns 1,000 tons of fossil carbon. Shockingly, we found that a 2 C temperature rise equates to a billion prematurely dead people over the next century, killed as a result of a wide range of global warming related climate breakdowns.

These findings were derived from a review of the climate literature that attempted to quantify future human deaths from a long list of mechanisms.

This is a staggering body count, though however uncomfortable it may be, it is consistent with diverse evidence and arguments from multiple disciplines.

As world leaders gather for the COP28 climate conference in Dubai from Nov. 30-Dec. 12, we would do well to remember that their decisions will be directly responsible for killing, or saving, real human lives.

How climate change will kill us

Human-caused climate change has killed — and will continue to kill — many human beings by numerous climatic breakdowns caused through a complex web of direct, intermediate and indirect mechanisms.

Direct mortal effects of climate change include heat waves, which have already caused thousands of human deaths by a combination of heat and humidity and even threaten babies.

Intermediate causes of death involve crop failures, droughts, flooding, extreme weather, wildfires and rising seas. Crop failures, in particular, can make global hunger and starvation worse.

More frequent and severe droughts can lead to more wildfires that also cause human deaths, as we saw in Hawaii. Droughts can also lead to contaminated water, more frequent disease and deaths from dehydration.

The 2022 IPCC Report predicted that drought would displace 700 million people in Africa by 2030.

On the other hand, climate change can also cause flooding (and crop failures from too much water), which also drives hunger and disease.

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