Earth Day falls on 22nd April, and to mark this important date, Do You Really Know is rerunning a series of episodes about environmental issues affecting our planet. Let's take a refresher on some of the terms and concepts you need to be familiar with, in order to understand climate change. Happy listening!

What is carbon neutrality?

All over the world, states are committing to reaching carbon neutrality in coming decades. That means achieving net zero CO2 emissions, by not emitting more than what planet Earth is able to absorb. If humanity doesn’t manage it, climate change could quickly become irreversible. We’re already feeling the effects of global warming through heatwaves, rising water levels, flooding, mudslides and loss of biodiversity. And it’s only just getting started, unless humanity manages to follow the IPCC’s recommendations to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. That’s what 195 countries signed up for with the 2016 Paris Agreement. One of the main ways of meeting that target is through carbon neutrality.

Does that mean we’ll totally stop emitting CO2? How close are we to reaching that balance right now? That’s a lot of work to do, in not a lot of time! How on earth are we going to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050? ? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

To listen the last episodes, you can click here:

What is a non-essential shop?

What are incels?

What is blasphemy?

A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.

In partnership with upday UK.

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