Die Klimakrise

As a Green Office, we feel an obligation to educate about the climate crisis and would like to do so below.

Since the industrial revolution, the global population has grown exponentially.The consumption of fossil fules is behaving similar to that. However, CO2 emissions are unevenly distributed around the world: The richest 10% of the global population are for responsible for about 50% of the global CO2 emissions through their business and consumption.
This causes an continuous increase of the average CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere and a steady rising global average temperature.

At the same time, human consumption of raw materials exceeds the earth's regenerative capacity. These resources are becoming increasingly scarce and in addition, pollution continues to rise in many places.

Rising temperatures can trigger tipping elements, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, the death of the rainforest or the thawing of the permafrost. This leads to feedbacks and domino effects that causes the global temperature to rise rapidly. Several of those tipping elements are almost reached.

The consequences of these developments are far-reaching. Because it also increases the likelihood and magnitude of climate-related threats, such as extreme weather events, forest fires, droughts, biodiversity loss and high social tensions.
This is because global warmimg also affects physical and mental human health, the cohesion of societies and the functioning of social systems. In the long-term this leads to conflicts over basic needs such as water and land.

The rise of the global surface temperature was 2019 at around 1.15°C above the pre-industrial average (1880-1900). Despite 30 years of climate negotiations is CO₂ concentration of the atmosphere still rising. Current research supports the "worst case" scenarios developed by the IPCC, which assume an increase of about 3.3 to 5.4 degrees by 2100.

Even a warming of 2 °C would irreversibly trigger many tipping elements. It is therefore, essential to limit the global warming to a maximum of 1.5°C in order to reduce these risks.

In a few years the global CO₂ budget calculated for 1.5°C will be exhausted . Therefore, greenhouse gas emissions have to be reduced immediately, to have enough time for a transormation of the economy . So now is the time to act.