Hi, I'm Ola from Gapminder.
It's April 2020 and we're in the middle of the global Corona lockdown.
It's very difficult times and I think many of us
hope something positive will come out of this.
I've seen people talk about global warming and the fact that the airplanes
across the world, almost all of them, are canceled.
They hope this will show up in the emission statistics as an example of
how we have to live to stop global warming.
I'm afraid of jumping to that conclusion.
I think actually talking about it that way might backfire
when people realize that: No. This is way too small to stop global warming.
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions we need to understand where the gases come from,
and the most important aspect is how rich people are.
Here are 8 billion people, sorted so
the poorest billion is to the left
and the richest to the right,
and that's the one I belong to,
and we are responsible for half of all the greenhouse gas emissions.
And the remaining emission, half of it comes from the second-riches.
And the others only emit a quarter of the total.
So it's really WE who are the problem.
Now, how much of this comes from airplanes?
We asked this question to our followers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook,
and also to 117 people in the UK.
Here are their results. This comes from a small online poll we did in February with Google surveys.
There are too few people to say anything for sure about the UK public,
but you can clearly see how very few went for the small number.
We are careful not to mislead people by how we design our questions.
So we first ask the question with more answer options,
like this, to 123 other people.
You can see how the results are very similar,
and Gapminder followers answered like this on Instagram, Twitter
and 80% of our followers on Facebook picked the right answer:
Less than 6 percent of greenhouse gas emissions comes from airplanes.
which shows that our followers are way more knowledgeable
than what I think the UK public is on this matter.
In the UK instead a majority went for the wrong and the very wrong answer.
They have probably heard that airplane emission is a huge part of the UK emissions.
So what's the problem if people exaggerate the emissions from airplanes?
"That will keep them away from flying " you might think.
but I already heard people who are disappointed that,
even after these sacrifices for Corona this is not enough to stop global warming
expect that we're still heating our houses the same way
and produce our food the same way.
The main difference is a little bit of traffic and the airplanes. Right?
They need to realize that's a small fraction. Right now...
In the future though, airplanes are gonna be a much bigger problem. I'll show you.
Right before Corona, airplanes emitted roughly 5% of all greenhouse gases,
that includes the high altitude effect above 8,000 meters
if after Corona the trends continue, the future will look something like this
By 2030 there will be 1 billion more people.
Everybody struggle to get richer.
and by 2050 they will have succeeded,
and there will be two billion people flying airplanes.
I'm not saying that I think this is a good thing:
the kind of overconsumption at the rich end.
I'm just saying that this is the most likely thing to happen
if the trends before corona continue afterwards.
This much greenhouse gas will heat up the planet very fast.
We the richest people will have to reduce our emissions
and replace our energy sources with green energy
to generate electricity and heat our homes and drive our cars.
If we succeed bringing it down to this level,
in 2050 the total emissions will be the same as they are today.
But to avoid heating the planet 1.5 degrees,
we'll have to cut that with 45% as well
And in the future, if we want to fly across the Atlantic
we'll need to have these kind of green airplanes
which I haven't seen any of yet...
So let's be careful not to confuse the discomfort from this corona lockdown
with the kind of lifestyle changes needed to stop global warming.
Instead we're going to learn other things from Corona,
such as how vulnerable we are.
Imagine a pandemic that actually kills children or have a higher fatality rate.
Now we are at least a little bit prepared.
And we learn how much we need a global collaboration in such situation.
Please sign up to be a tester of our new
ignorance reduction service which were soon launching.
We have tested thousands of fact questions where people are systematically wrong.
Or just stay tuned to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram,
where are we're gonna keep posting many of these questions
and we'll tell you when the service is ready.