Chapter 24, the figures
The bill, itemized
The exact numbers behind Chapter 24, each dated and sourced
Chapter 24 tells the bill in words: the heat, the fires, the flood at Chiva, the thaw, the line that keeps moving, the plastic and the carbon. The exact figures live here instead, one row each, with the date the figure was published and the source behind it. They are dated because most of them will be out of date soon, and in the wrong direction.
“The bill is already arriving, itemized.”
The three years 2023 to 2025 averaged more than 1.5 °C above the 1850 to 1900 level, the first three-year stretch past the Paris line.
As of 2025, year in review
Heat killed an average of 546,000 people a year, 2012 to 2021, up 23 percent since the 1990s.
As of October 2025
World Health Organization, 'Climate inaction is claiming millions of lives every year, warns new Lancet Countdown report', news release (29 October 2025)The 2025 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change, Lancet Countdown (October 2025)Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 'Annual heat-related deaths surge to 546,000 in the last decade due to climate change' (29 October 2025)The claim on the sources pageCanada's 2023 fire season burned more than 17 million hectares by the national estimate, over twice the 1989 record of about 7.6 million. Worldwide, tree cover loss reached a record 30 million hectares in 2024, the first year on record that major fires raged across both the tropics and the boreal forests.
As of 2023 season; 2024
International Association of Wildland Fire, 'Overview 2023: Canada, Standing Together', Wildfire MagazineNatural Resources Canada, 'Canada's record-breaking wildfires in 2023: A fiery wake-up call', Simply ScienceParks Canada, Pukaskwa National Park, '2023's Record Breaking Fire Season' (bulletin 93)World Resources Institute, 'Global Forest Loss Shatters Records in 2024, Fueled by Massive Fires', news release (21 May 2025)World Resources Institute, Global Forest Review, 'How much forest was lost in 2024?'The claim on the sources pageThe Los Angeles fires of January 2025: about US$53 billion in overall losses, about US$40 billion insured, the costliest wildfire disaster to date.
As of 2025, year in review
Each 1 °C of global warming cuts world food output by about 120 kilocalories per person per day, after farmers adapt.
As of 2025
Andrew Hultgren, Tamma Carleton, Michael Delgado, Diana R. Gergel, Michael Greenstone, Trevor Houser, Solomon Hsiang, Amir Jina, Robert E. Kopp, Steven B. Malevich, Kelly McCusker, Terin Mayer, Ishan Nath, James Rising, Ashwin Rode and Jiacan Yuan, 'Impacts of climate change on global agriculture accounting for adaptation', Nature (18 June 2025)The claim on the sources pageEven if warming is held to 1.5 °C, global mean sea level rises about 2 to 3 meters over the next 2,000 years.
As of August 2021
“Count what the oil bought before what it cost.”
Just over 70 percent of the world's ammonia, the start of nitrogen fertilizer, is made from natural gas.
As of October 2021
About 4.7 billion people, 58 percent of the world, used mobile internet on their own device at the end of 2024; about 4.8 billion by the end of 2025.
As of 2025
Data centers used about 1.5 percent of the world's electricity in 2024 (415 TWh), set to more than double to about 945 TWh by 2030, slightly more than Japan uses today.
As of April 2025
“The sky took the first payment.”
Permafrost is ground that stays frozen for at least two years running.
As of Standing definition
Northern permafrost soils hold 1,460 to 1,600 billion metric tons of organic carbon, about twice what is in the atmosphere.
As of 2019
“The people who model the frozen ground.”
On the high-emissions road, near-surface permafrost area shrinks by about two thirds by 2100.
As of September 2019
The IPCC's climate models still leave out abrupt thaw.
As of August 2021
IPCC, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, Technical Summary (2021)The claim on the sources pageAbrupt thaw may affect less than a fifth of the permafrost region but reach half its carbon.
As of February 2020
Gradual thaw alone could release up to about 150 billion tons of carbon by 2100 under weak climate policy; carbon budgets had not counted it.
As of May 2021
“Watch the line move.”
The Paris Agreement: hold warming 'well below 2 °C' and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 °C.
As of December 2015
2024 was the warmest year on record, about 1.55 °C above the pre-industrial level, likely the first calendar year above 1.5 °C.
As of January 2025
World Meteorological Organization, “WMO confirms 2024 as warmest year on record at about 1.55°C above pre-industrial level,” press release, 10 January 2025The claim on the sources pageUnder the policies in force, warming reaches about 2.8 °C by 2100.
As of November 2025
UN Environment Programme, Emissions Gap Report 2025: Off Target (4 November 2025), with its press releaseThe claim on the sources page
“Plastic last.”
FAST-PETase: the machine-learning model behind it was trained on about 19,000 protein structures; the paper ran in Nature.
As of April 2022
Hongyuan Lu, Daniel J. Diaz, Natalie J. Czarnecki, Congzhi Zhu, Wantae Kim, Raghav Shroff, Daniel J. Acosta, Bradley R. Alexander, Hannah O. Cole, Yan Zhang, Nathaniel A. Lynd, Andrew D. Ellington and Hal S. Alper, 'Machine learning-aided engineering of hydrolases for PET depolymerization', Nature 604 (2022), pp. 662 to 667'Plastic-eating Enzyme Could Eliminate Billions of Tons of Landfill Waste', UT News, The University of Texas at Austin (27 April 2022)'Machine learning helps engineer a better plastic degrading enzyme', Chemical and Engineering News (May 2022)Kouba P. et al., 'Machine Learning-Guided Protein Engineering', ACS Catalysis 13 (2023), PMC10629210The claim on the sources pageThe world used 460 million tonnes of plastic in 2019, and only 9 percent of plastic waste was ultimately recycled.
As of February 2022
OECD, 'Plastic pollution is growing relentlessly as waste management and recycling fall short, says OECD', press release on the Global Plastics Outlook (22 February 2022)OECD, Global Plastics Outlook: Economic Drivers, Environmental Impacts and Policy Options (Paris: OECD Publishing, 2022)The claim on the sources pageThe first full-size enzymatic PET recycling plant, Carbios's at Longlaville, France, was due in 2025; in December 2025 it moved to the first half of 2028, subject to financing, and in August 2026 the financing date slipped again. Disputed: see the claim on the sources page.
As of August 2026
'Indorama Ventures and Carbios build new PET biorecycling plant in France', Hydrocarbon Engineering (2 June 2023)Carbios, 'CARBIOS maintains its commitment to build the Longlaville plant and adjusts its timeline' (18 December 2025)Carbios, 'Carbios provides an update on the financing of its Longlaville plant project' (3 August 2026)The claim on the sources page (disputed)
“Carbon first.”
Climeworks switched on Mammoth at Hellisheiði, Iceland, on 8 May 2024.
As of May 2024
Carbfix, “World’s largest direct air capture plant switches on in Iceland” (8 May 2024)Laura Paddison, CNN, 8 May 2024, on Climeworks’ Mammoth plantJuerg M. Matter et al., “Rapid carbon mineralization for permanent disposal of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions,” Science 352 (2016): 1312 to 1314The claim on the sources pageAt the opening, the plan was a million tons a year by 2030 and a billion by 2050.
As of May 2024
Laura Paddison, CNN, 8 May 2024, on Climeworks’ Mammoth plantThe claim on the sources pageMammoth was built for up to 36,000 tons a year; it removed 675 tons net in the first half of 2026, almost six times a year earlier, about half a second of 2025's fossil emissions.
As of September 2026
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi for metal-organic frameworks, porous crystals some of which catch carbon dioxide.
As of October 2025
Occidental's Stratos plant in West Texas, built to remove up to 500,000 tons a year, was slated for the end of 2024; in August 2026 the company said the end of 2026.
As of August 2026