This tool tells you how fossil fuel emissions actually translate into heat deaths, coral reef damage, and more

A groundbreaking open-source tool, called the Carbon Impacts Tracer, allows users to translate the tonnes of CO2 emissions produced by new fossil fuel projects into measurable damages. Created by climate experts from Australia National University, the University of New South Wales, and several other institutions, the tool quantifies the tangible consequences of emissions, such as excess heat deaths in Europe, crop production loss, coral reef damage, and more.

For instance, selecting the Carmichael coal project in Australia, the tool reveals that its 4.7 billion tonnes of emissions would result in an estimated 2,628 additional heat-related deaths in Europe. Alternatively, the emissions could be equivalent to the loss of food supply for 1.62 million people annually, or the loss of 87.4 million coral colonies due to bleaching events. The tool also highlights 248,000 more people pushed into extreme poverty and 1.9 million individuals displaced from the human climate niche.

The Carbon Impacts Tracer includes scenarios for multiple Australian projects, as well as examples from other countries like the Bay Du Nord Project, an offshore oil development in Canada. It also allows users to input custom emissions amounts, ranging from 1 million to 10 billion metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent. By linking emissions to specific damages like heat-related deaths and crop loss, the tool's creators believe it will hold fossil fuel companies and governments accountable for the climate damage their projects cause.