Our planet is in trouble. Climate change is real. Widespread, tumultuous change has occurred in our atmosphere, oceans, biosphere, and cryosphere, driving weather and climate extremes, anomalies, and record heat across the globe. Already, the damage has been substantial. ‘[Climate change] has led to widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people’ (Sixth Assessment Report, UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC). And the cause is well known. Decades of research and legions of scientists attest unequivocally that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming, threatening to precipitate unprecedented levels of global heating across the planet.

In 2021, the IPCC calculated that carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions must be halved by 2030, relative to 2019 levels, and reduced to net zero by 2050 to limit global temperature increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. The 1.5C target is the threshold warming level which, if exceeded, would unleash ‘far more severe climate change impacts, including frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves and rainfall’ (IPCC). Regrettably, the world is nowhere near where it needs to be; fossil fuel usage continues to expand relentlessly and emissions continue to surpass record levels. Massive increase in climate change action is needed to stem the tide.