As the heat waves, droughts, and floods associated with climate change become more frequent and more intense, communities suffer and death tolls rise. Global warming is already taking a toll on the United States. Though everyone is affected by climate change, not everyone is affected equally. Indigenous people, people of color, and the economically marginalized are typically hit the hardest. Inequities built into our housing , health care , and labor systems make these communities more vulnerable to the worst impacts of climate change—even though these same communities have done the least to contribute to it.
A: In recent years, China has taken the lead in global-warming pollution , producing about 26 percent of all CO2 emissions. The United States comes in second. And America is still number one, by far, in cumulative emissions over the past years. As a top contributor to global warming, the United States has an obligation to help propel the world to a cleaner, safer, and more equitable future.
Our responsibility matters to other countries, and it should matter to us, too. But in order to avoid the worsening effects of climate change, we need to do a lot more—together with other countries—to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and transition to clean energy sources. Despite the lack of cooperation from the Trump administration, local and state governments made great strides during this period through efforts like the American Cities Climate Challenge and ongoing collaborations like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
Meanwhile, industry and business leaders have been working with the public sector, creating and adopting new clean-energy technologies and increasing energy efficiency in buildings, appliances, and industrial processes. Today the American automotive industry is finding new ways to produce cars and trucks that are more fuel efficient and is committing itself to putting more and more zero-emission electric vehicles on the road.
Developers, cities, and community advocates are coming together to make sure that new affordable housing is built with efficiency in mind , reducing energy consumption and lowering electric and heating bills for residents.
And renewable energy continues to surge as the costs associated with its production and distribution keep falling.
In renewable energy sources such as wind and solar provided more electricity than coal for the very first time in U. President Biden has made action on global warming a high priority. Warmer temperatures also result in the expansion of the water's mass, which causes sea levels to rise, threatening low-lying islands and coastal cities. The oceans have absorbed most of extra heat and carbon dioxide CO 2 so far — more than the air — making the seas both warmer and more acidic.
Warming waters are bleaching coral reefs and driving stronger storms. Rising ocean acidity threatens shellfish, including the tiny crustaceans without which marine food chains would collapse. Sadly, the poorest and most vulnerable nations, and the people who have contributed least to the problem, will be among the hardest hit by global warming.
Some of the countries most at risk include our neighbours in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, including Kiribati, Tuvalu, Vietnam and the Philippines. Sign up to Regenerate Australia. To survive, plants, animals and birds confronted with climate change have two options: move or adapt.
And with the amount of habitat destruction, moving is becoming increasingly difficult. Read more on food and farming here. Higher temperatures and humidity could also produce more mosquito-borne disease. Within Australia, the effects of global warming vary from region to region.
How climate change plunders the planet A warming Earth disturbs weather, people, animals and much more. Will wildfires keep spreading with climate change? Growing more food with less pollution. Climate change is threatening the sea ice where polar bears live. As greenhouse gases pile up in our air, our oceans are far from immune to the problem. First of all, with global warming comes ocean acidification , an increasingly serious threat to marine species. Much of the human-generated CO 2 spewed into the atmosphere eventually ends up in our oceans, changing seawater chemistry to make it more acidic and depleting seawater of the compounds that organisms like corals, crabs, seastars, sea urchins, and zooplankton require to build the protective shells and skeletons they need to survive.
Because plankton are at the base of the delicate ocean food chain, ocean acidification could disrupt the entire marine ecosystem. Marine species are affected by global warming in numerous other ways.
Warmer water temperatures have been shown to slow the growth of phytoplankton — the microscopic plant counterpart to zooplankton — imperiling not only the species that eat these tiny plants, but all species in the ocean food chain.
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