2050Today
Climate Change is in your hands
By measuring your greenhouse gas emissions and by reducing them accordingly you can be the change you want to see as of today
2050Today is here to reverse the trend with your institution
Why it matters :
The planet has entered a state of emergency with unprecedented risk of damage to humanity and the environment. Global warming and the collapse of biodiversity are having fatal consequences on an exponential scale. Urgent action is needed at all levels – everywhere and now – to confront the threat.
United for zero emissions
Imagine a world where climate action for zero emissions is the natural course of action for everyone, entity or individual. 2050Today is about measuring our greenhouse gas emissions and reducing them accordingly to bring about the change we want today.
United by this vision, 60 institutions in international Geneva have decided to take action to confront the challenge of climate change by implementing 2050Today. Permanent Missions, international organisations and civil society entities have committed to measure and reduce their emissions while confirming their willingness to cooperate together for effective, inclusive and sustainable climate action.
Joining or supporting 2050Today means participating in a coalition of entities resolutely committed to reducing emissions and concerned about acting in accordance with a sustainable planet for future generations.
Climate news
4 Actions Vulnerable Countries Need from COP28
The conclusion of the Global Stocktake at COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates this December will evaluate how much progress the international Paris Agreement on climate change has made in the fight against the climate crisis and what more is needed to accelerate climate action forward. But its findings will be no mystery: the world is way off track, and the most vulnerable countries are already disproportionately feeling the consequences.
Source : World Resources Institute
May 26, 2023
Who Said Recycling Was Green? It Makes Microplastics By the Ton
A study finds one plastics recycling plant in the U.K. produces as much as 3 million pounds of microplastics a year—and that’s with filtering.
Source : Inside Climate News
May 17, 2023
How Wildfire Smoke from Australia Affected Climate Events Around the World
New research implicates emissions from the 2019-2020 Australian fires in the emergence of a three-year super La Niña that fueled droughts in Africa and hurricanes in the Atlantic.
Source : Inside Climate News
May 12, 2023
WMO annual report highlights continuous advance of climate change
From mountain peaks to ocean depths, climate change continued its advance in 2022, according to the annual report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Droughts, floods and heatwaves affected communities on every continent and cost many billions of dollars. Antarctic sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record and the melting of some European glaciers was, literally, off the charts.
In Switzerland, 6% of the glacier ice volume was lost between 2021 and 2022 – and one third between 2001 and 2022. For the first time in history, no snow survived the summer melt season even at the very highest measurement sites and thus no accumulation of fresh ice occurred.
Source : World Meteorological Organization
April 24, 2023
Intensifying Cycle of Extreme Heat And Drought Grips Europe
Last summer’s heat waves killed 15,000 people, and the odds for even hotter years keep rising.
Source : Inside Climate News
April 24, 2023
From laggard to leader: UNESCO is making progress in the EMS process
In 2022, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has achieved impressive results, ranking among the four organizations (seven per cent of the total) that met the environmental criteria. This is particularly noteworthy because, according to Greening the Blue Report 2021, UNESCO was among the group of entities that did not meet the criteria.
Source : UNESCO
April 10, 2023
Time to act
To keep global warming below 1.5°, we must at all costs avoid depleting our carbon budget. All organisations must therefore reduce their emissions as much as possible – and as soon as possible – in order to comply with the IPCC special report’s warning to limit global warming to 1.5°C. At current emissions levels, this budget will be exhausted within a few years and well before 2030. Every moment is counting and the countdown is not stopping. So the time to act is today.
Act now ! Amanda Gorman, American Youth Poet Laureate
That’s how fast the carbon clock is ticking
The MCC Carbon Clock shows how much CO2 can be released into the atmosphere to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5°C and 2°C, respectively. Once the remaining time has elapsed these thresholds will be exceeded. With just a few clicks, you can compare the estimates for both temperature targets and see how much time is left in each scenario.
2050Today
Carbon footprint
The world total carbon footprint in 2019 due to human emissions was around 37 gigatons of CO2 eq. These huge emissions are the accumulation of many and many … billions of big and small emissions that are the result of life styles and consumption.
To reach net zero emissions by 2050, the individual carbon footprint should not exceed 700 kg/ year of CO2 eq.
For the time being, the average individual footprint in Switzerland is 14 t CO2 eq. It means, we should divide our carbon footprint by 20. Let’s start and take up the challenge today.
Here is the carbon footprint of some everyday life aspects, be it the production of goods or the consumption of services (average values):
The weight of CO2
160 g can be compared to the weight a banana. It means that for each km by car we send a CO2 banana in the atmosphere …
Just imagine how it would be if these bananas were left on the roads
| Sources | Co2 Equivalent kg |
|---|---|
| One car | 4000 - 7000 |
| One personal computer | 165 |
| One smartphone | 33 |
| One e-mail | 0.020 |
| One kg of office paper | 1.2 |
| One Plastic bottle (33 cl.) | 0.070 |
| Vegetarian meal | 1.7 |
| Non-vegetarian meal | 3.6 |
| Coffee (1cup) | 0.113 |
| Green Electricity (kWh) | 0.007 |
| 1 km by petrol car | 0.160 |
| 1 km by train (in Switzerland) | 0.007 |
The global human footprint
The carbon footprint is only one part of the impact of human beings on planet Earth. To get a glimpse of our global impact, take a look at the graphic below.
We should also keep in mind how quickly our impact has grown. The Earth, our only available habitat, appeared some 4.5 billion years ago. The ancestors of human beings first appeared less than 10 million years ago.
In other words, if you were to compress the entire history of the Earth into 24 hours, the first Homo sapiens would only arrive in the last few seconds and the advent of agriculture would only be a blink of an eye before midnight.
To have a closer look, follow Living in the Age of Humans, a series of stories that examine the impacts of human presence on Earth.
The human impact so far
Major environmental-change categories expressed as a percentage relative to intact baseline. Red indicates percentage of category damaged, lost or otherwise affected; blue indicates percentage intact, remaining or unaffected. Frontiers in Conservation Science
