Climate-changing human activity may cause 1 billion deaths

The oil and gas industry is directly and indirectly responsible for more than 40 per cent of carbon emissions. (Chris LeBoutillier/Pexels) Aggressive energy policies needed to decrease carbon emissions and minimize loss of lives, says new study If global warming reaches or exceeds two degrees Celsius by 2100, Western University's Joshua Pearce says it is likely mainly richer humans will be responsible for the death of roughly one billion mainly poorer humans over the next century. The oil and gas industry, which includes many of the most profitable and powerful businesses in the world, is directly and indirectly responsible for more than 40 per cent of carbon emissions - impacting the lives of billions of people, many living in the world's most remote and low-resourced communities. A Western-led study proposes aggressive energy policies that would enable immediate and substantive decreases to carbon emissions and recommends a heightened level of government, corporate and citizen action to accelerate the decarbonization of the global economy, aiming to minimize the number of projected human deaths. Joshua Pearce (Joshua Pearce photo) "Such mass death is clearly unacceptable. It's pretty scary really, especially for our children," said Pearce, Western's John M. Thompson Chair in Information Technology and Innovation and lead author of the study. "When climate scientists run their models and then report on them, everybody leans toward being conservative, because no one wants to sound like Doctor Doom.