Corona is canceling flights but not teaching us to solve global warming

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.