Why We Need To Act On Climate Change Now

Jan Dash PhD is a physicist, an expert at quantitative finance and risk management, and a consultant at Bloomberg LP. In his thought-provoking book, Quantitative Finance and Risk Management, A Physicist’s Approach, he devotes a chapter to climate change and its long-term systemic risk. Jan’s Climate Portal provides background. In this interview with Phil Stock World's Ilene Carrie, Jan discusses climate change and the way inaction is threatening our future.

Ilene: Hi Jan. Thank you for taking the time to share your ideas on global warming. . . I’m looking at a graph, along with the current atmospheric CO2 level that you and Yan Zhang modeled for the Bloomberg Carbon Clock, which shows just how sharply CO2 levels have increased mostly in only the last 50 years relative to the last 12 thousand years. And I can see that CO2 levels are currently about 400 ppm – and that at 450 ppm, the text says we will reach a “ danger zone.” What happens when CO2 levels reach 450 ppm? Why is that level considered the “danger zone?”

 

Screenshot of Bloomberg’s Carbon Clock

Jan: If we can limit CO2 to 450 ppm, it is likely that we can limit the average global temperature increase to around 2 degrees Centigrade or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels. This is the goal of the Paris Agreement, designed to leave a livable planet to our descendants.

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