New Tool Links Carbon Emissions to Real-World Environmental and Economic Damage
A new tool, the Carbon Impacts Tracer, translates fossil fuel emissions into estimated real-world harm across eight factors, including lost food production, and was used to illustrate the potential effects of a major New South Wales coal project.
The Guardian reported that the HVO mine, described as the biggest coal project before authorities in New South Wales, would emit the equivalent of about 809 million tonnes of climate-warming carbon dioxide if it wins approval. That amount would add about 0.00036C to global heating. The raw figure would carry little meaning for most people, the report said, but the Carbon Impacts Tracer presents the same emissions as exposing almost half a million people to unprecedented heat, or killing nearly 15 million coral colonies on the Great Barrier Reef every time it bleaches.
All those statistics come from the new tool, which its team says draws on peer-reviewed climate research. Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climate scientist at the Australian National University and part of the team launching the Carbon Impacts Tracer, said: "Small numbers in global warming can mean catastrophic impacts."