Last year’s high average global temperatures, which smothered the western United States in drought and fires and triggered a deadly hurricane in New York, may not have broken records.
But most worrying for some observers is the persistence of temperatures above the 20th century average for several years now, which policymakers and investors should worry about, especially those wondering how to improve respiratory health and save people. shorelines, or exploit technologies that will make solar power cheaper and pollution capture scalable.
The cost of managing rising temperatures is also skyrocketing. Last year saw the second-highest number of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters on record, a recipe for higher insurance premiums and construction budgets.
Several readings emerge
The average temperature on land and sea surfaces in 2021 was 0.84 degrees Celsius (1.51 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 20th century average, according to a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Last year marked the 45th consecutive year that global surface temperatures were above average, the report said.
Scientists are increasingly comparing these long-term warmings to temperatures beginning in the 1880s-90s, when the Industrial Revolution took hold.
A separate statement from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said 2021 tied with 2018 for the sixth hottest year and was hotter than all other years except 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2020. years 2020 and 2016 share temperature record. Last year, the United States recorded its hottest summer since 1936, and well-above-normal readings arrived from unexpected places in the American Pacific Northwest and Canada.
Read: The smallest particles of pollution pose a major risk: childhood asthma, deaths in poor air quality ignored for too long, studies find
Meanwhile, a report released in early January by the European Union’s Copernicus climate change service ranked 2021 as the fifth hottest year on record. The nonprofit Berkeley Earth said 2021 tied with 2018 and 2015 as the sixth hottest year on record in its annual analysis, released this week.
“No one lives at the global average temperature,” said Berkeley Earth lead scientist Dr. Robert Rohde. “Most land areas will experience warming above the global average, and countries need to plan their responses to this. »
High price to pay
About 8% of the planet’s surface, home to 1.8 billion people, experienced the highest average temperatures on record in those regions, according to the Berkeley Earth report.
Last year, the United States alone experienced 20 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters that killed at least 688 people – the highest number of disaster-related deaths for the contiguous United States since 2011 and more than double the 262 in 2020, according to NOAA.
Read: Hotter and more frequent heat waves endanger the work and lives of countless essential workers
The monetary bite of these events totaled around $145 billion. This exceeds the total damage of $102 billion from the 22 natural disasters of 2020.
Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide from vehicles, factories and more, as well as the more potent methane, emitted by livestock, landfills and when natural gas is captured. Methane lasts less in the atmosphere.
About 190 countries signed a voluntary pact in Paris in 2015 pledging to take action to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and ideally to 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels. This pact guides updated policies on climate change, including at the last UN meeting in November.
“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, the oceans and the land,” concluded the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in a report released in August.
That means a “solution” requires greater human influence, say scientists and cleaner energy advocates.
“Cooler” investment
Many studies have shown that greenhouse gases released into the air by burning fossil fuels are the main driver of climate change and global warming. But disarming rich countries, as well as advanced developing countries, from their reliance on convenient, cheaper CL00 oil and NG00 gas is proving to be a long process.
Some lawmakers favor keeping natural gas in a diversified U.S. energy portfolio alongside wind, solar and nuclear power, even as they support national pledges to achieve net-zero emissions in coming decades.
The COVID-19 economic downturn reduced emissions, but they came back strong. Still, the reduction has proven to some that behavioral changes and public-private investments in greener technologies as the economy rebounds will pay off.
President Biden has pledged to halve America’s Earth-warming carbon emissions by the end of this decade, an ambitious undertaking by most accounts that requires greater investment in solutions solar, wind, battery storage and hydrogen energy.
Some environmental stocks have been criticized for being “greenwashed” or for their impact on climate change, but no doubt the space will only expand, including mutual fund and fund opportunities. traded on the stock exchange. Assets in self-proclaimed “sustainable” funds tripled between late 2018 and mid-2021 to $2.3 trillion, according to Morningstar.
L’ETF iShares Global Clean Energy ICLN,
is one of the most important considerations for individual investors with over $6 billion in assets under management. And the First Trust Nasdaq Clean Edge Green Energy Index Fund QCLN,
is an entry point for electric vehicle companies, including Tesla TSLA,
without limiting a “green game” to electric vehicles alone.
Investors can explore specific individual stocks with additional research, such as photovoltaic power system maker Sunworks SUNW,
or residential solar provider Enphase Energy ENPH,
hydrogen fuel cell maker Plug Power, or longtime renewable energy name Brookfield Renewable Partners BEP,
Even traditional stocks have a climate change angle, including General Electric GE,
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