This tweet alleges that humans have supposedly had a minimal effect on global warming, concluding; “nothing we can do”.
Background
According to a report on Our World in Data platform, global average temperatures have increased by more than 1℃ since pre-industrial times. See screengrab below.
Similarly, the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reveals that the decade of the 2000’s has been the warmest.
“It is certain that global mean surface temperature (GMST) has increased since the late 19th century. Each of the past three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any the previous decades in the instrumental record,” the IPCC report adds.
Verification
This report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) further states that, “Climate change is real and human activities are the main cause.”
“The most abundant greenhouse gas, accounting for about two-thirds of greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), is largely the product of burning fossil fuels,” the UNEP report adds, also indicating that the concentration of greenhouse gases is directly linked to the average global temperature on earth.
Greenhouse gases (GHGs) include Water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4), and ozone (O3).
“The distribution of observed atmospheric CO2 increases with latitude clearly shows that the increases are driven by anthropogenic emissions that occur primarily in the industrialized countries north of the equator,”- Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
In a fact-check on methane emissions here, Piga Firimbi also found that human activities or anthropogenic factors account for 60% of methane (CH4) emissions.
Further debunking the claim that humans have nothing to do with global warming is a U.S Global Change Research Program’s Fourth National Climate Assessment, also shows that human activities are the primary cause for global warming.
Verdict
The tweet claiming that humans have had a minimal effect on global warming is FALSE.
This fact-check was produced by Africa Uncensored with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck, International Fact-Checking Network, and African Fact-Checking Alliance network.
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