Halloween is right around the corner. Raise your hand if you are ready for costumes, candy and ghost stories I know I am. This is the time of year where fear turns into fun. But sadly, there are some horror stories we cannot escape.

And one of them, is known as: CLIMATE CHANGE

Fellow trick-or-treaters, here are 6 scary facts about climate change:

Climate change kills 5 million people per year.

Almost 10% of global deaths can be attributed to abnormal hot and cold temperature. According to research linking extreme whether to mortality, climate change kills 5 million people every year (Bloomberg, 2021).

After analyzing mortality and weather data from 750 locations in 43 countries between 2000 and 2019, researchers found the average daily temperature in these locations increased by 32°F per decade. Monash University’s Prof Yuming Guo, one of the study’s lead researchers, said this trend would continue because of climate change, and total mortality rates may go up as temperatures rise (The Guardian, 2021).

$29 billion weather disasters in 2022.

Hurricane Ian in Florida.

The deadly floods in Pakistan where nearly 1,700 lost their lives.

The $20 billion drought and heat wave in Europe that caused 16,000 deaths.

These extreme weather events are among the catastrophes so far this year (Yale Climate Connections, 2022) and are worth $29 billion in 2022.

Greenwashing isn’t going anywhere.

The headline climate pledges of 25 of the world’s largest companies in reality only commit to reduce their emissions by 40% on average, not 100% as suggested by their “net zero” and “carbon neutral” claims (New Climate Institute, 2022).

According to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), just 100 of all the hundreds of thousands of companies in the world have been responsible for 71% of the global GHG emissions that cause global warming since 1998.

If companies continue to extract fossil fuels at the rate they have over the last two decades, it is estimated that the global average temperature will rise by up to 4°C.

Within the next 2 decades, global temperatures are likely to rise 1.5 degrees Celsius.

A certain amount of global warming is already locked and irreversible. Within the next 2 decades, global temperatures are likely to rise 1.5°C. unless governments everywhere reassess their energy policies, the world will be uninhabitable. (United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – IPCC).

According to António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations:

“This is not fiction or exaggeration. It is what science tells us will result from our current energy policies. We are on a pathway to global warming of more than double the 1.5°C (2.7°F) limit” that was agreed in Paris in 2015.

The last 8 years have been the hottest on record.

The latest figures from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show that global temperatures are 1.1°C above preindustrial levels, and creeping ever closer to the 1.5°C limit. (National History Museum -NHM).

Extreme heat waves fuel wildfires and stress the power grid. Extreme heat has caused or contributed to the deaths of more than 700 Americans per year on average over the past 30 years. Heat is the leading cause of weather-related death in the U.S., causing more deaths than hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, or extreme cold. (Earth observatory).

More than 1 million species are at risk of extinction.

Scientists estimate species are going extinct at nearly 1,000 times the natural rate. By mid-century, as many as 30% to 50% of the total species found on Earth will have disappeared.