Climate Facts: 13m people die annually from air pollution, food insecurity

The complexities of climate change and its associated jargon can make it difficult to digest. TheCable’s climate quick facts will help to demystify these climate concepts through easy-to-understand and straight-to-the-point explanations.

Here are some to keep at the tip of your fingers:

• From 1990 to 2019, research on Africa received just 3.8 percent of climate-related research funding globally. This, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has reduced adaptive capacity in the continent.

• The United Nations projects that to keep temperatures below 2°C, emissions must drop by 2.7 percent every year from 2020 to 2030.

• Over 90 percent of people breathe unhealthy levels of air pollution resulting from burning fossil fuels driving climate change, according to the UN.

• Every year, environmental factors take the lives of around 13 million people, says the UN.

• The UN says over 17 percent of food is wasted, and up to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with food that is not consumed.