
Corporations claim their fossil fuel emissions are a drop in the ocean. But what if we could count the real cost?
A new tool called Carbon Impacts Tracer can be used to estimate climate impact from emissions across eight metrics, including lost food productionThe biggest coal project before authorities in New South Wales, the Hunter Valley Operations mine, will emit the equivalent of about 809m tonnes of climate-warming carbon dioxide if it wins approval. That number, for most people, will carry little meaning, as might the calculation that adding that amount of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere will cause an extra 0.00036C of global heating. But what if the public was instead told that that amount of carbon dioxide would expose almost half a million people to unprecedented heat, or kill nearly 15 million coral colonies on the Great Barrier Reef every time it bleaches, or lead to more than 100 additional deaths from heatwaves in Europe to the end of this century. All those statistics come from
Graham ReadfearnGreenhouse gas emissionsAustralia news