TheCable

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:

• Human activities have raised the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content by 50 percent in less than 200 years, says the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
• The United Nations says doubling global renewable energy capacity by 2030 could save the global economy between $1.2 and $4.2 trillion each year, largely due to a massive reduction in costs from pollution.
• Warming over land is larger and more than twice as high in the Arctic, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
• Without adaptive measures, the number of people who lack sufficient water for at least one month per year will soar from 3.6 billion today to more than 5 billion by 2050, says the UN.
  
• According to the IPCC, while benefits for air quality would come quickly, it could take 20 to 30 years to see global temperatures stabilize.