Climate Facts: Reduction in emissions will prevent 260,000 deaths annually

The complexities of climate change and its associated jargon can make it difficult to digest. TheCable’s climate quick facts will help to demystify these climate concepts through easy-to-understand and straight-to-the-point explanations.

Here are some to keep at the tip of your fingers:

• The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) states that Sustainable agriculture uses up to 56 percent less energy, creates 64 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than conventional farming.

• Livestock emissions account for roughly 32 percent of human-caused methane emissions, according to UNEP

• Every year, the subsequent reduction in ground-level ozone — ozone that is formed when pollutants emitted by cars, power plants, industrial boilers, refineries, chemical plants, and other sources chemically react in the presence of sunlight causing harm to humans — will prevent 260,000 premature deaths, according to UNEP.

• According to UNEP, reduction of human-caused methane emissions by 45 percent this decade will avert nearly 0.3°C of global warming by 2045 and help limit global temperature rise to 1.5˚C.

• UNEP states that methane has accounted for roughly 30 percent of global warming since pre-industrial times and is proliferating faster than at any other time since record-keeping began in the 1980s.