一种名为“碳影响追踪器”的新工具可用于通过八项指标估算排放的气候影响，包括粮食生产损失。新南威尔士州当局面前最大的煤炭项目——亨特谷作业矿，如果获批将排放约8.09亿吨导致气候变暖的二氧化碳当量。对大多数人来说，这个数字意义不大，计算结果显示向大气中增加该量温室气体将导致全球升温额外0.00036摄氏度，这同样可能毫无意义。
A new tool called Carbon Impacts Tracer can be used to estimate climate impact from emissions across eight metrics, including lost food production The biggest coal project before authorities in New South Wales, the Hunter Valley Operations mine, will emit the equivalent of about 809m tonnes of climate-warming carbon dioxide if it wins approval. That number, for most people, will carry little meaning, as might the calculation that adding that amount of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere will cause an extra 0.00036C of global heating.
但如果公众被告知，该量二氧化碳将使近50万人暴露于前所未有的高温中，或在每次白化事件中导致大堡礁近1500万珊瑚群体死亡，或导致本世纪末前欧洲热浪造成100多例额外死亡，情况会怎样？所有这些统计数据均来自一种新工具，该工具将燃烧化石燃料的排放量转化为基于同行评审气候研究的预估现实气候影响。
But what if the public was instead told that that amount of carbon dioxide would expose almost half a million people to unprecedented heat, or kill nearly 15 million coral colonies on the Great Barrier Reef every time it bleaches, or lead to more than 100 additional deaths from heatwaves in Europe to the end of this century. All those statistics come from a new tool that translates the emissions from burning fossil fuels into estimated real-world climate effects taken from peer-reviewed climate studies.
“全球变暖中的小数字可能意味着灾难性影响，”澳大利亚国立大学气候科学家、碳影响追踪器发布团队成员莎拉·珀金斯-柯克帕特里克教授表示。
“Small numbers in global warming can mean catastrophic impacts,” says Prof Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climate scientist at the Australian National University who is part of a team launching the Carbon Impacts Tracer.