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
Can the New High Seas Treaty Help Limit Global Warming?
A framework agreement to protect open oceans is the first step toward enacting protections for ecosystems that take CO2 from the air and store it for millennia in sediments.
Source : Inside Climate News
March 14, 2023
New WWF Analysis: Greenhouse Gas Accounting Efforts Undermined by Disparate Tools & Frameworks
Variability in product-level greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting standards and methodologies can prevent companies from understanding both their true emissions and their progress in reducing them, according to a new analysis from World Wildlife Fund (WWF). While rigorous organization-level GHG accounting has enabled companies to identify and address emissions hotspots, greater harmonization in product-level accounting could accelerate progress and enable cross-organizational comparison.
Source : WWF
March 13, 2023
Everyone should be concerned : Antarctic sea ice reaches lowest levels ever recorded
With the continent holding enough ice to raise sea levels by many metres if it was to melt, polar scientists are scrambling for answers
Source : The Guardian
March 13, 2023
The stealth export of waste plastic clothes to Kenya
The trade of used clothing in Kenya has come to represent the export of plastic waste to countries in the Global South, and a lesser known source of vast quantities of plastic pollution. Our investigation sheds light on this broken system – the pressure realease value of the Global North’s overproduction and overconsumption of fast fashion, and the fashion industry’s overreliance on synthetic fibres
Source : Changing Markets Foundation
February 24, 2023
‘Extreme situation’: Antarctic sea ice hits record low
Sea ice helps protect glaciers and ice caps that would cause massive sea level rise when lost, scientists warn
Source : The Guardian
February 23, 2023
The Red Sea Could be a Climate Refuge for Coral Reefs
A large new marine protected area could help some of the world’s most heat-tolerant corals survive the century, if the pressures from resorts, industry and other development ease.
Source : Inside Climate News
February 6, 2023
Jointly, we participate in the transition
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
