The future will be both better and worse than we imagine
- King's College, London, UK
There is no longer such a thing as business as usual. We have put some climate policies in place, taking actions, making progress. Research shows the predicted warming in the year 2100 taking into account those policies: around 3.3 degrees of warming. And we also have pledges for what we intend to do, including those for the Paris Agreement. These would take us a little lower, to 3 degrees. You can watch how these predictions change, over the coming months and years.
The future, then, is already better than we imagined it would be, but still worse than we imagine it could be. And each new policy and pledge will bring the future further down the scale, towards the Paris Agreement targets of 2 and 1.5 degrees. There would still be serious consequences at this level of warming. But climate change is not something that is simply won or lost. It is an arc that we can choose to bend toward justice. We will all be both heroes and villains, and wake up the next day and be heroes again. We will create our story, word by word, deed by deed.
How to cite: Edwards, T.: The future will be both better and worse than we imagine, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-22660, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-22660, 2020