Over the past century, global greenhouse gas emissions have led to a sharp increase in the number of bat species in the southern Chinese Yunnan province. Bats in this area have been suggested as the original carriers of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Scientists from Cambridge, Potsdam and Hawaii showed in a study that climate change caused shifts in the natural vegetation of the region, which allowed c. 40 bat species, carrying around 100 coronaviruses, to expand into newly suitable habitat. This process would have likely created new opportunities for viruses to be transmitted or evolve, potentially facilitating the eventual spill-over to humans. In this way, climate change may have played an important role in the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2.

Economic growth goes down when the number of wet days and days with extreme rainfall go up. PIK researchers found that statistically 10 more wet days in a year reduce economic growth of a region by 1%. Rich countries are most severely affected, especially the manufacturing and service sectors. The data analysis of more than 1.500 regions over the past 40 years shows a clear connection and suggests that a rising number of daily rainfall extremes, caused by human-made climate change, will harm the global economy.

Almost all of industry energy needs in Europe can be satisfied with clean power by 2050. Replacing fossil fuels with low-CO2 electricity is key to stabilize our climate. 78% of industry’s energy demand is electrifiable with technologies that are already established, Potsdam researchers showed, while 99% can be achieved with the addition of technologies currently under development. However, industry electrification leads to greenhouse gas emissions reductions only if power generation gets greener. If we do this,  in line with the European Green Deal’s targets, energy-related industry emissions would become minimal by mid-century, leaving only process emissions from chemical reactions and the like which account for around one fifth of current industry emissions.