Impacts on Climate Change
Fracking will lock the UK into a new fossil fuel industry for decades to come and undermine the drive towards clean renewable energy and a low-carbon economy.
As well as the CO2 caused by burning the fracked gas, leaks during production and from abandoned wells will allow large quantities of methane to enter the atmosphere, and methane is 86 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2 over 20 years.
Climate change will lead to more extreme weather events and flooding across the UK and the rest of the world.
Never has it been more urgent to address climate change. In Oct 2018 the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest summary report, confirming the urgent need for governments to tackle climate change head on and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, setting out just what is at stake if we breach 1.5 C warming.
For many years 2 C was talked of as a 'safe' limit. But now it is clear that 2 C is 'safe' for no one. It's also clear that we're on well on the way to miss our targets and inadequate plans to tackle climate change would see us reaching 3C or 4C within the lifetime of today's children with potentially catastrophic environmental and social impacts.
IPCC Press Release - 8th October 2018
(full report here)
The IPCC reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of climate change. It does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters.
