![]() ![]() Reducing our carbon footprint is fundamentally necessary to create a world where people and nature thrive – and that’s why WWF is working on it. From more extreme weather to increasing food prices, to recreation and decreased opportunities to appreciate the natural world, people everywhere will feel its effects. More of this technology could mean a cleaner, healthier future for us and our planet – because clean tech doesn’t just help nature, it also has the potential to build better, more accessible and people-friendly cities.Ĭlimate change won’t just impact forest, or coral reefs, or even people in far-off countries – it will affect all of us. Meanwhile nifty gadgets – like the Wall-E sized robot that can insulate your house to save energy – are helping to cut carbon in unexpected places. Solar panels, wave-energy conversion and wind farms are allowing us to harness the power of nature in a clean way, harvesting energy without harming our environment or destroying habitats. Some of the biggest advancements in technology over the past few years have come from trying to limit, and come up with alternatives to, humanity’s CO2 dependency. Beijing’s insidious smog is a visible reminder of this, but bad air quality is also making headlines in the UK, and has been labelled a ‘public health emergency’ by MPs. Air pollution can lead to asthma, heart and lung disease. This affects human health, especially children. With increasing carbon emissions, it stands to reason that we face compromised air quality. It’s a double-edged sword too: worldwide, forest destruction – mainly for agriculture – is a major cause of climate change, generating an incredible amount of greenhouse gases. Yet over a third of the Amazon rainforest is already threatened by climate change. They really are amazing the Amazon, for example, is home to an astonishing 1 in 10 of all the known species on Earth. Unique, irreplaceable, and often described as ‘the world’s lungs’, rainforests are some of the most precious habitats on the planet. We need to see politicians taking serious action on reducing the UK's carbon footprint, not looking for the next photo opportunity. Year after year we’ve seen politicians wading through floods in Somerset, hopping into dinghies in Cornwall and arguing with each other in Westminster. More frequent and more intense extreme weather is a documented result of our greenhouse gas emissions, and the annual cost of flooding in the UK could increase 15-fold by the 2080s. Globally temperature records have been broken in recent years, and flooding in the UK gets worse. And although it’s hardly comparable with life-threatening floods, climate change may already be making you late for work. Climate change affects rainfall patterns, meaning both drought and flooding will be more common, and more intense. ![]() Because we all need clean waterĭid you know that 2 in every 3 people worldwide live in regions of severe water scarcity? Even a small increase in global temperatures will destabilise the water cycle and could make water scarcity much worse. Climate change is very bad news for anyone hoping to see the Great Barrier Reef one day. Today, the ocean is 26% more acidic than it was in 1990, and the Great Barrier Reef has just experienced unprecedented back-to-back bleaching events in 20. ![]() Ocean acidification – from increased CO2 in the atmosphere – compounds the problem. Warmer air and ocean temperatures cause coral bleaching, where corals lose their colour and may die. Finding Nemo or Dory may become harder as their beautiful homes crumble under the stress of our changing climate. ![]()
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