Researchers say the world may be approaching a tipping point, followed by a dangerous slide towards Hothouse Earth, an overheated planet.

LONDON, 7 August, 2018 – Human actions threaten to push the planet into a new state, called Hothouse Earth. In such a world global average temperatures could stabilise at 4°C or even 5°C higher than they have been for most of human history.

How do you clear a room of climate activists? Start talking about war. It’s not just environmentalists that leave; it’s pretty much everyone.

BERLIN – Since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2015, too many policymakers have fallen for the oil and gas industry’s rhetoric about how it can help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Tall tales about “clean coal,” “oil pipelines to fund clean energy” and “gas as a bridge fuel” have coaxed governments into rubber-stamping new fossil fuel projects, even though current fossil fuel production already threatens to push temperatures well beyond the Paris agreement’s limit of well below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

17-21 minutes

July 12th 2018

This story was originally published in The Guardian and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.