“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.” That’s how the 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) landmark climate report begins — the most comprehensive overview of climate science ever. In other words, there’s no denying that it’s our fault, and it’s time we stopped evading responsibility. 

The 4,000-page report, released Monday, leaves no room for climate denialism. Due to heat-trapping greenhouse gases, emitted by burning fossil fuels, we’ve already heated the planet 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the 19th century. The last decade is likely the hottest the earth has been in 125,000 years. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have hit a two million year peak. And due to advances in computer modeling, it’s now clear that much of the extreme weather we’ve seen this year — heatwaves, wildfires, and floods — would be nearly impossible in a world without climate change. 

It’s too late to prevent a warming world — we’re experiencing that now. Even if we miraculously stopped all emissions today, the planet would likely still warm to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next two decades, meaning more heat waves, droughts, and extreme weather. And there’s no way we can even stop all emissions immediately, leading experts to estimate our current trajectory is closer to 3 degrees of warming. 

The inevitability of a warmer future is no reason to throw up our hands in defeat. The impact of 1.5 degrees of warming is unimaginably different from 3-4 degrees. At 1.5 degrees, extreme heat waves are likely to occur every 10 years. At 4 degrees, they’d occur nearly every year. And more warming also brings the planet closer to reaching dangerous so-called tipping points, like the melting of Siberian permafrost or the Greenland ice sheet — irreversible events that have unpredictable, potentially catastrophic ripple effects.

Because we’ve been so slow to act in the past decades (and because of oil and gas companies’ climate denialism and heavy hand in delaying climate action), we’re now playing defense. Limiting warming now will require an unprecedented coordinated international effort to reduce emissions to zero by 2050 — a goal that has proved elusive in the past, and one that makes November’s COP26 conference all the more critical for what it can prevent. Because it literally is a matter of degrees. The action we take now can still save millions of lives and enrich the world for future generations. The report makes clear that cutting emissions is a sure-fire way to halt global warming: our task is clear.

We cannot treat the IPCC’s tome as “just another report.” We’re talking about the lives and livelihoods of real people. Nothing less than the future of human civilizations, of flora and fauna, are at stake. This report has underlined, again, the importance of sweeping climate policy. Here at the Center, we’re working to make sure climate justice is a part of that policy. The warming of our world is deeply unjust, and to build a climate-just future for all, we must root out injustice and build the supportive and sustainable systems we really want.

The work of the Center has never been more important. We’re working hard to expose unjust power structures and create a climate-just future for all. 

Maliya Ellis

Editor-in-Chief