Greta Thunberg - The Climate Book : The Facts and the Solutions

Average global temperatures have risen approximately 1.2C since the pre-industrial age.

In the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC) 2021 report a group of 234 top scientists from 66 countries concluded that it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.

Greenhouse gas emissions which include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases from human activities have risen to concentrations in the atmosphere that have not been seen in millions of years, since a time when trees grew at the South Pole and the sea level rose by 20 metres.

Despite dire warnings in the 1980s and 1990s, we have emitted more CO2 since 1991 than in the rest of human history.

According to the IPCCs estimate, our remaining carbon budget for a 67 per cent chance of limiting warming to 1.5C at the beginning of 2020 was 400 gigatonnes. At the current rate of emissions, we will exceed this carbon budget before 2030.

Some countries are vastly more historically responsible for emissions than others; the largest emitters released hundreds of billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere between 1850 and 2021.

In 2015, nearly every country in the world 195 in total committed to the Paris Agreement. The goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit global warming to well below 2C, and ideally below 1.5C, compared to pre-industrial levels.

The world is not on track to meet these goals. There is a vast gap between the promises governments have made and the actions they have taken. Many emissions such as those from international transport and shipping, as well as many of those associated with the military go unrecorded or are unaccounted for.

Based on current policies, the IPCC estimates that global warming will reach 3.2C by 2100.

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Compilation copyright 2022 by Greta Thunberg

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First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Random House UK, 2022.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Thunberg, Greta, 2003 compiler.

Title: The climate book : the facts and the solutions / Greta Thunberg.

Description: New York : Penguin Press, 2023. | First published by Allen Lane, 2022 Title page verso.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022049218 (print) | LCCN 2022049219 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593492307 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593492314 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Climatic changes. | Climate justice.

Classification: LCC QC903 .T59 2023 (print) | LCC QC903 (ebook) | DDC 363.738/7452dc23/eng20230113

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022049218

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022049219

Cover design: Darren Haggar

Cover image: Warming Stripes by Professor Ed Hawkins, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading

Designed by Jim Stoddart, adapted for ebook by Cora Wigen

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Peter Brannen / Science journalist, contributing writer at the Atlantic and author of The Ends of the World.

Beth Shapiro / Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of California, Santa Cruz and author of Life as We Made It.

Elizabeth Kolbert / Staff writer for the New Yorker and the author, most recently, of Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future.

Michael Oppenheimer / Atmospheric scientist, Princeton Universitys Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs and long-time IPCC author.

Naomi Oreskes / Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University.

Johan Rockstrm / Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Professor at Potsdam University.

Katharine Hayhoe / Endowed Chair and Distinguished Professor at Texas Tech University and author of Saving Us.

Zeke Hausfather / Climate research lead at Stripe, research scientistat Berkeley Earth.

Bjrn H. Samset / Senior researcher at CICERO Centre for International Climate Research, an IPCC lead author, and expert on the effects of non-CO2 emissions.

Paulo Ceppi / Lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute and the Department of Physics at Imperial College London.

Jennifer Francis / Senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center and formerly Research Professor in Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University.

Friederike Otto / Senior lecturer in Climate Science at the Grantham Instituteat Imperial College London and co-lead of World Weather Attribution.

Kate Marvel / Climate scientist at the Columbia University Center for Climate Systems Research and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Ricarda Winkelmann / Professor of Climate System Analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the University of Potsdam.

Stefan Rahmstorf / Head of Earth System Analysis at the Potsdam Institute and Professor of Physics of the Oceans at the University of Potsdam.

Hans-Otto Prtner / Climatologist, physiologist, Professor and Head of the Department of Integrative Ecophysiology at the Alfred Wegener Institute.

Karin Kvale / Senior researcher at GNS Science and expert in modelling the role of marine ecology in global biogeochemical cycles.

Peter H. Gleick / Co-founder and president-emeritus of the Pacific Institute, member US National Academy of Sciences, hydroclimatologist.

Jolle Gergis / Senior lecturer in Climate Science at the Australian NationalUniversity and lead author on the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

Carlos A. Nobre / Earth System scientist on the Amazon, Chair of the Science Panel for the Amazon and the convener of the Amazonia 4.0 project.