Has climate policy-making gone right off the rails? That question pops into my head with increasing frequency these days, most recently when I glanced at a Guardian headline: ‘Daunting but doable’: Europe urged to prepare for 3°C of global heating.
“Not now, El Niño,” pleads the astrophysicist-turned climate scientist, Kate Marvel. On top of the fossil fuel crisis and conflicts derailing the world, it appears that Mother Nature is about to provide the umpteenth lesson that we mess with the grand cycles of the Earth to our peril.
German scientists are warning that global warming is accelerating, that the planet could heat by as much as 3 C over pre-industrial levels by 2050 — just 24 years from now — and that we could exceed 5 C of warming by the century’s end.
This should be top headline news. It should alarm us all. It should spur politicians to urgent action.
