Sadly, his warnings were—as we know—ignored. Fast forward to today, and the last eight years on Earth were the hottest on record. Meanwhile, the tangible effects of climate change are already being felt around the world. Just think of the devastating wildfires in Australia, the US, and southern Europe in recent years, or the deadly floods in Pakistan in 2022, which displaced a staggering eight million people, or the ongoing drought affecting the Horn of Africa, which has left millions struggling for food and water in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya.
Despite this, we’re still in desperate need of real leadership on climate change. Instead of being drastically reduced, global CO2 emissions actually reached a record high in 2022. In the U.S., President Joe Biden has just approved the Willow project in Alaska, one of the country’s largest ever oil drilling projects on federal land—which could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day.
While all of this may seem incredibly bleak, scientists say we have the solutions needed—most importantly, kicking our addiction to fossil fuels—to reach peak emissions by 2025, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2030. “If we act now, we can still secure a liveable, sustainable future for all,” explains Hoesung Lee, chair of the IPCC.
The message could not be clearer. We’ve now had all the warnings, and we’ve got the solutions. The question still remains, though: what will it take for real action on climate change to take place?