The real-time consequences of delayed climate action are all around us and have become impossible to ignore. Dire warnings from climate scientists about the increasing risk of unacceptable, and in some cases unimaginable, climate impacts are growing ever more frequent: catastrophic sea level rise, large-scale loss of arable land or critical freshwater sources, regional feedback loops that could drive rainforest dieback or uncontrollable methane emissions, or earth system changes in the ocean or Arctic that could drive unpredictable large-scale changes in severe weather (just to name a few).

Most of these many climate impact emergencies could likely be abated by a rapid reduction in emissions, probably combined with a significant escalation of direct CO2 removal from the atmosphere. However, political, economic and technical barriers, combined with continued uncertainty about safe temperature thresholds for various parts of the earth system, mean that the risk of triggering one or more climate impact emergencies in the next two or three decades remains high. 

Society must find the required urgency, and quickly, to create translational mission-driven R&D efforts to address potential climate impact emergencies that would amount to strategic surprise at a truly planetary, catastrophic scale. While the ultimate goal is to convince governments (particularly the US) to take on this challenge head on, we simply can’t afford to wait.

You can learn more about how we might get started here.