Een jaar met recordtemperaturen infographic
Graphic shows monthly record temperatures since June 2023.
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Jaar met recordtemperaturen

By Duncan Mil

June 4, 2024 - The global average temperature for the last 12 months is the highest on record, at 1.63°C above pre-industrial levels, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Since the 2015 Paris Agreement, the call to action has been to “keep temperatures from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.”

With monthly temperatures inching closer to two °C, a study in April by the Germany-based Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) warns that rising temperatures could potentially slash 17% of global GDP by 2050, amounting to a staggering US$38 trillion per year.

“The world population is poorer than it would be without climate change,” PIK’s climate data researcher Leonie Wenz, co-author of the study, told Reuters. “It costs us much less to protect the climate than not to.”

The report estimates that measures to limit global warming to within 2 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial temperatures by 2050 would cost $6 trillion -- a sixth of the potential damage.

PIK’s researchers examined temperature data and rainfall for more than 1,600 regions over the last 40 years and considered which events were costly. They then used that data and climate model projections to estimate future damage.

Sources
PUBLISHED: 05/06/2024; STORY: Graphic News
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