The one-sentence summary

We need major changes at the international level to help move beyond the current economic system and move toward a more sustainable global economy.

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WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

  • The climate system is very straightforward. It is controlled by more solar energy being received at the Equator than the Poles. Climate is simply the redistribution of energy due to this imbalance. It is the atmosphere and the oceans which undertake this redistribution. The ocean dominates heat exchange in the tropics while the atmosphere is more important in the mid to high latitudes.
  • The latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report states that it is virtually certain that anthropogenic climate change has caused increases in the frequency and severity of hot extremes and decreases in cold extremes on most continents. Storms, floods, heatwaves, droughts and wildfires have increased everywhere. In 2024, there were over 600 extreme weather events of which 150 were record breaking in intensity, duration or location.
  • When it comes to prediction, four-day forecasts today are as accurate as two-day forecasts were 20 years ago.
  • What is dangerous climate change? Each society has a coping range. Humans can live in many extreme environments so long as they know what they have to cope with. The single biggest problem is our inability to predict what those extremes might be.
  • Our climate is heading for uncertainty and scientists have come up with four scenarios of how thresholds and tipping points might respond:
    1. Linear but delayed response – like pushing a car along a flat road, with no response at first and then it moves.
    2. Muted or limited response – like pushing a car uphill, with very little response because the system is buffered somehow.
    3. Delayed and Non-Linear – once the car has reached the top of the hill it will accelerate down the other side with no help.
    4. Threshold response – little general response until a threshold is reached, causing sudden change and a response overshoot.
  • The IPCC identifies 5 possible Shared Socioeconomic Pathways that may shape the global economy and emissions in the future:
    1. Taking the Green Road – the world shifts continually to a more sustainable path.
    2. Middle of the Road – trends do not change much and current problems continue.
    3. Regional Rivalry – A Rocky Road with a resurgence of nationalism, concerns about security and regional conflicts.
    4. Inequality – A Road Divided with highly unequal investments in human capital.
    5. Fossil Fuel development – Taking The Highway with increasing faith in competitive markets, innovation and much adaptation.
  • Solutions to climate change include mitigation by reducing our carbon footprint, adaptation by providing protection from impacts, and geoengineering to remove large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere or modifying global climate. The geoengineering options range from the very sensible to the completely mad.

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

  • The two major areas that can affect human health are water and food. The most important threat is lack of access to fresh drinking water. There are currently an estimated 2.2 billion people who lack access to safely managed drinking water services and basic sanitation. It is estimated that if nothing is done to mitigate climate change, up to 50% of the world’s population could live in countries experiencing water stress by 2050, with 80% of them living in developing countries.
  • In 2006, the Stern Report on the Economics of Climate Change stated that if we do nothing, the impacts could cost between 5% and 20% of world GDP every year by 2050, somewhere between $10 trillion and $40 trillion. On the plus side, if we do something, this might only be 1% of GDP.
  • According to the World Food Programme, there are 730 million people on the brink of starvation but the world produces enough food to feed 10 billion people.
  • Estimating the overall impact of climate change on agriculture is difficult as agricultural production has very little to do with feeding the world’s population and more to do with trade and economics. Subsidies create huge imbalances, just as they do with subsidized energy, with fossil fuels accounting for 85% of all global subsidies. In 2015 the IMF calculated that if nations reduced subsidies to create more efficient fossil fuel pricing it would have lowered emissions by 28% and air pollution deaths by 46% as well as increasing government revenue by 3.8% of GDP.
  • After 35 years of COPs, the UNFCCC process (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) has been heavily criticized for not going far enough, having no enforcement, green colonialism (in which rich developed countries continue to boss less developed countries around), and a nation versus sector approach (in which national attempts to reduce carbon merely allow others who do not have a certain restrictive law to exploit the opportunity and emit more).
  • Governments should support renewable energy, electric vehicles and public transport, cut fossil fuel investment and subsidies, tax fossil fuel use, build new low carbon infrastructure, reforest and rewild, promote low emission farming and diet, support emissions trading schemes, protect its citizens with adaptation, and provide a Universal Basic Income.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

  • Not much. The book is a huge compendium of knowledge and information, but after informing the reader in detail it moves clearly to proposed solutions and how they might work.