The Bitcoin (BTC) mining industry might want to accelerate its transition to green energy sources and decrease the risks of another regulatory pushback as the world’s top climate scientists have stated that “human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2000 years.”
Over the recent months, many governments and individuals have expressed concern over the impact Bitcoin mining has on the world’s climate and how it may contribute to climate change. While miners have generally been moving towards the so-called “green bitcoin,” many in the crypto industry have also worked to disprove arguments surrounding Bitcoin mining’s environmental impact.
In recent weeks, however, this particular story surrounding Bitcoin has seemingly weakened. But now, the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned the world and its governments that in just the next twenty years the planet will warm by 1.5° Celsius if no drastic moves to eliminate greenhouse gas pollution are put in place.
The assessment, made by more than 200 scientists, puts into question the Paris Agreement’s main goal – to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5° Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.
Per Reuters, Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, called the document “a code red for humanity,” saying that it “must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels before they destroy our planet.”
Meanwhile, after China cracked down on the local Bitcoin mining industry recently, the network’s reliance on coal and fossil fuels is estimated to have dropped.
Mati Greenspan, Founder of Quantum Economics, told Cryptonews.com that,
“Though hard data is difficult if not impossible to acquire in crypto due to the anonymous nature of the industry, what’s clear is that the exit of China from Bitcoin mining has served to accelerate the transition to cleaner energy for these sort of operations.”
‘It is virtually certain’
The IPCC report’s many findings include the following points:
- each of the last four decades has been successively warmer than any decade that preceded it since 1850;
- the likely range of total human-caused global surface temperature increase from 1850–1900 to 2010–2019 is 0.8°C to 1.3°C, with the best estimate of 1.07°C;
- human influence is very likely the main driver of the global retreat of glaciers since the 1990s and the decrease in Arctic sea ice area between 1979–1988 and 2010–2019, as well as to decrease in snow in certain parts of the world;
- it is virtually certain that the global upper ocean has warmed since the 1970s and extremely likely that human influence is the main driver;
- human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe;
- every additional 0.5°C of global warming causes clearly discernible increases in the intensity and frequency of hot extremes, including heatwaves, and heavy precipitation, as well as agricultural and ecological droughts;
- it is virtually certain that the land surface will continue to warm more than the ocean surface (likely 1.4 to 1.7 times more);
- it is virtually certain that the Arctic will continue to warm more than global surface temperature, with high confidence above two times the rate of global warming.
The report concludes:
“The scale of recent changes across the climate system as a whole and the present state of many aspects of the climate system are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years.”
Limiting human-induced global warming to a specific level requires limiting cumulative CO2 emissions, reaching at least net zero CO2 emissions, along with strong reductions in other greenhouse gas emissions, it stated. “Strong, rapid and sustained reductions in CH4 [methane] emissions would also limit the warming effect resulting from declining aerosol pollution and would improve air quality.”
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Learn more:
– BTC Mining Migration, Challenges & Forecasts for the Post-crackdown Industry
– Chinese, Taiwanese Bitcoin Miners Eyeing Paraguay Move
– A Closer Look at the Environmental Impact of Bitcoin Mining
– Bukele Teases Volcano-powered Bitcoin Mining Center as Exchange Arrives
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