Tag Archives: 1.5°C

Cost of Climate Change

Happy New Year Humanity – The Quadra Project

When the outside world is too disturbing to confront, people seek
relief through the vicarious safety of fantasy. This explains why 2025
was a banner year for horror movies. J.G. Ballard, an English novelist
and essayist, noted that, “The ultimate dystopia is the inside of
one’s own head.” Dr. Coltan Scrivner, a behavioural scientist agrees.
“You walk around with your mask of tranquillity, but inside your mind
is a maze of worries. Horror allows you to take off your mask.” (The
Guardian Weekly, Editorial, Oct. 24, 2025.) So with this genre of
movie you get to experience horror, but not the real kind that you
might be reluctant to confront.

As we mark the beginning of 2026, we are one quarter of our way
through the 21st century and are coming closer to the haunting
forecasts of climate catastrophe by the end of the century, if we do
not reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. So a review of 2025 seems
appropriate.

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Cost of Climate Change, Finances

The Quadra Project – Planetary Solvency

Actuaries are the people who compile and analyze statistics and use them to calculate insurance risks and premiums. Their studies are finely honed, and because billions of dollars of profits and losses are determined by their conclusions, they are as objective and precise as any in our modern world.

Actuaries now have a sobering view of the world’s economic future if the urgency of global climate change is not addressed. The risk is that the global economy could face a 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090 if immediate policy action is not taken on the climate crisis.

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Cost of Climate Change

International Court of Justice Issues Landmark Climate Opinion

“The Court hopes that its conclusions will allow the law to inform and guide social and political action to address the ongoing climate crisis.” – ICJ Advisory Opinion, para. 456

In a historic and unanimous ruling, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued its Advisory Opinion on the legal responsibilities of nation states to address climate change. This decision, requested by the United Nations General Assembly in 2023, clarifies for the first time what international law demands of countries and what legal consequences may follow if they fail to act.

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Cost of Climate Change

The Quadra Project – Warming Oceans

The close connection that exists between the atmosphere and the ocean is not surprising considering that 70% of the planet is covered by water—about 360 million km2—and the few dozen km of air is extremely thin compared to the 12,750 km diameter of Earth. This means that about 90% of the atmospheric heating caused by rising concentrations of CO2 is transferred to the oceans.

In approximate terms, about one-third of the carbon dioxide we add to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels stays there for centuries, about one-third is captured and sequestered in various land forms such as forests, soils and vegetation, although one recent United Nations study suggests the terrestrial sequestration may only be about 25%, possibly because forest and plant cover is being diminished by agriculture and fires, and because a higher global temperature is reducing the photosynthesis process by which plants process carbon dioxide into carbon, sugars and oxygen. Much of the remaining one-third of our CO2 emissions that is not absorbed by marine algae dissolves in the oceans to form carbonic acid.

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Cost of Climate Change

The Quadra Project: Uninhabitable – Part 1

A global temperature review of 2024 confirms the trend that has been so concerning to climatologists. The last 10 years have been the warmest on record, and 2024 has been the warmest yet. The European Copernicus calculation measured 2024 as 1.6°C above the pre-industrial temperature, with most days being above the 1.5°C aspirational target set by the Paris Agreement (COP21) in 2015. Other organizations measured a slightly different temperature for 2024: NASA at 1.47°C, NOAA at 1.46°C, and Berkley Earth at 1.62°C. The differences are technical but the trend is the same. Global temperatures are rising in concert with our greenhouse gas emissions.

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