RUNAWAY climate change is the single greatest threat to our survival and, in our response to avert catastrophic global warming, perhaps also the single greatest opportunity to reshape our society.

But so far the plans announced to tackle it and reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases fall well short of what is needed. Despite the fanfare about the “historic” Paris agreement reached in late 2015, the workings of the deal leave much to be sorted out later on.

Countries are left to come up with their own plans for how much they intend to do. Yet only one (Morocco) intends to do its “fair share” of the work to limit warming to 1.5°C, and only five to limit warming to 2°C, according to the Climate Action Tracker group.