Capitalism as currently practised has imperilled the existence of millions of planetary species, as well the health and well-being of billions of humans. It also threatens the prosperity that it was intended to create. – Naomi Oreskes, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University.

We can no longer rule out the risk of tipping points, leading to changes that cannot be stopped… - Johan Rockström, Director of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Science doesn’t lie – Greta Thunberg, Climate Change Activist and Author.

Unchecked, human-caused climate change could lead to the extinction of a third of the plant and animal species on the planet by 2050 - Katherine Hayhoe, Distinguished Professor at Texas Tech University.

Air pollution from fossil fuels is already responsible for nearly 10 million premature deaths around the world every year - Katherine Hayhoe, Distinguished Professor at Texas Tech University.

Some of the CO₂ we emit today – around 20 per cent – will still remain in the atmosphere 10,000 years into the future – Zeke Hausfather, Climate research lead at Stripe, Berkeley Earth.

Humans have become a geological force - Ricarda Winkelman, Professor of Climate Science Analysis, University of Potsdam.

We are seeing only the beginning of a much larger sea-level rise which is already ‘baked in and will unfold over centuries and millennia to come, even without further warming – Stefan Rahmstorf, Head of Earth System Analysis and Professor of Ocean physics, University of Potsdam.

More and more regions are at or approaching ‘peak water’ – the point where taking more water from the environment is impossible, physically, economically or environmentally. Some rivers are literally consumed entirely by the human use, such as the Colorado River – Peter H Gleick Hydroclimatologist, US National Academy of Sciences.

When the media (covers the problem) they don’t show us what is causing it, for example an SUV factory in Germany, a dairy farm in Denmark, a shopping mall in Seattle, a clear cut forest in Sweden, or a container ship arriving in Rotterdam filled with plastic toys, speakers and smartphones. Instead we get pictures of polar bears in the Artic, melting glaciers in Antarctica and the Greenland Ice Sheet collapsing – Greta Thunberg, Climate Change Activist and Author.

A 2018 study estimated that it would take between 44 and 104 years for forest to recapture the carbon released by burning wood – if they ever could, given their increasing exposure to soil erosion, extreme temperatures files and diseases …. burning wood releases more CO₂ per energy unit than burning coal – Greta Thunberg, Climate Change Activist and Author.

The Amazon Basin in South America: a  huge carbon sink that is now drying out because of climate change, while being burned and felled to support industrial scale agriculture. Not only does this pose a threat to the stability of the global carbon cycle, but it also threatens to destroy one of the world’s remaining biodiversity hot spots. The warmer the planet gets, the more frequent and extreme wildfires will become…. This positive feedback loop is like pressing down on a car’s accelerator – Joëlle Geris, Senior lecturer in Climate Science, Australian National University, Lead author, IPCC Sixth Assessment report.

An astonishing 60 per cent of the land area of the Russian Federation is permafrost. While permafrost collapse has been reported to have doubled over recent decades in the Artic, scientists are now reporting that permafrost collapse with associated greenhouse gas emissions is increasing ten times faster on the Tibetan Plateau. The release of these emissions – not to mension the role of underwater permafrost and mehanr hydrates – would drastically reduce our ability to stay under 1.5°C or even 2°C of warming  – Örjan Gustafasson, Professor in Biochemistry, Stockholm University.

The kind of heat that was expected only a decade before human influence is now three times more likely. Extreme heavy rain is now 30 per cent more likely. Droughts – less rain, and drier soil – are 70 percent more likely - Tamsin Edwards, Climate Scientist, Kings College, London and IPCC lead author on sea level rise uncertainty.

What if we could stop our emissions instantly? Some parts of the planet would keep on changing as they continue reacting to our past emissions. The world’s glaciers would continue to retreat for decades or centuries, and the oceans would continue to warm. This means the seas will rise there will be more coastal flooding, no matter wat we do. The IPCC has said that ‘unless there are immediate, rapid, and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5°C or even 2°C will be beyond reach’ - Tamsin Edwards, Climate Scientist, Kings College, London and IPCC lead author on sea level rise uncertainty.

Wherever we deliver care, in our hospitals, clinics and communities around the world, we are aleady responding to the health alarms caused by climate change – Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus – Director General of the World Health Organisation.

Anthropogenic climate change is responsible for in three deaths due to heat today … Recent studies have projected that, under the most pessimistic scenario (that is, if emissions persist and no adaptation occurs), climate change will increase the current number heat-related deaths by ten times by the end of the century – Ana M. Vicedo-Cabrera, Environmental epidemiologist, University of Bern.

In the United States alone, reducing emissions globally to meet the Paris Agreement could prevent about 4.5 million premature deaths - Drew Shinedell, Climate Scientist and Distinguished Professor, Duke University.

…our steady addition of CO₂ into our planet’s atmosphere is making our food less nutritious – Samuel S. Myers, Principal research scientist, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

With the current policies we currently have in place, we are heading for 3.2°C of global warming by the end of the century. This equal disaster. But we are still not reacting. In fact, we are still speeding the wrong direction – Greta Thunberg, Activist and author.

The manifest injustice whereby polluters – largely rich people around the world, who are the most responsible ofr carban emissions and environmental harm – are hurting poor people…overwhelmingly  poor people of colour, even in rich countries like the United States – Saleemul Huq, Director, International Centre for Climate Change and Development, Bangladesh.

Today, just 1 per cent of the planet is considered too hot and dry for civilization. But, by 2070, researchers have concluded, 19 per cent of the planet – home to some 3 billion people – might be uninhabitable. This suggests that the world is about to see hundreds of millions of people displacws, and billions more suffer, as the fastest and most disruptive change in recorded history furiously unfolds – Abrahm Lustgarten, Investigative reporter, New York Times.

If the Earth warms by 3°C above pre-industriallevels, the risk is, simply, the collapse of civilisation itself. This will be a global calamity marked by financial collapse, mass starvation, mass migration and the descent of many nations into civil disorder – Eugene Linden, Journalist and Author

In 2021, Moody Analytics estimated the global economic toll of 2°C of warming $69 trillion….Swiss Re estimated that 2.6°C of warming by 2050 would inflict three times more economic damage than the Covid-19 pandemic. Three degrees of warming would produce a world that hasn’t existed since humans emerged as a species….It’s certain that such a world could not support 7.8 billion people….Climate changemust be averted at any price because its ultimate cost can neither be imagined nor calculated – Eugene Linden, Journalist and Author.

In Sweden, only one third of our actual emissions of greenhouse gases were included in our climate targets and theofficial national statistics. The rest was either outsourced or hidden in the loopholes of international climate accounting frameworks. The gap between the emissions that countries reported to the United Nations and the greenhouse gases actually being emitted was enormous: between 8.5 and 13.3 billion tonnes a year, leaving a gap of 16-23 per cent gap of unclaimed emissions…equalling almost the total yearly emissions of China – Alexandra Urisman Otto, Journalist, Dagens Nyheter. 

We’ve now reached the point when we need to stop burning things on the surface of the Earth. We shouldn’t be digging down to find coal and oil and gas and setting them on fire – that’s dirty, dangerous and depressing. The transition to renewable energy is going much too slowly to allow us to catch up to the damage of global warming – Bill McKibben, Climate Change Author.

We can put billions of tonnes of carbon back into land through natural climate solutions such as forest and wetland restoration, tree planting, no-till farming etc. A more plant based diet, especially eating less red meat, and smaller global population would also reduce deforestation and global cattle numbers – Rob Jackson, Earth Scientist, Stanford University and Chair, Global Carbon Project.

We have developed impressive creative accounting, loopholes, outsourcing and greenwashing PR narratives that make it seem as if real action is being taken when in fact it is not. Continued economic growth, on the other hand, has been hugely successful – Greta Thunberg, Activist and Author.