Page 27 - Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

Figure 4: Selected significant climate anomalies and events in 2019 [iv]

Figure 5 from NASA graphs the increase in atmospheric carbon over time. NASA has echoed that the
current warming trend that corresponds to this increase is ‘proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented
over decades to millennia.’ 57

Figure 5: Increase in atmospheric carbon with time [v]

Adding to the aforementioned concerns is the fact that while momentum to view the environmental
and climate challenges as part of the overall global economic architecture gained ground after the
2008 to 2009 global financial crisis – as seen in the formulation of the Paris Agreement (detailed
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in Box 3) – a decade later, there is still not enough that has been done economically or politically
to shift the balance toward sustainability, even though the deteriorating environmental conditions
increasingly threaten humanity itself. In a strange paradox, despite worsening climate conditions
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