“WE are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster.” This is the terrifying opening sentence of the 2024 State Of The Climate report, co-written by a team of leading climate experts and published in the Oxford University Press academic journal BioScience.

The highly respected authors — including Prof William J Ripple, Prof Johan Rockstrom, Prof Michael E Mann and Prof Naomi Oreskes — note current policies mean humanity is on track for 2.7°C of warming by 2100. It is “a dire situation never before encountered in the annals of human existence.”

Out of 35 planetary vital signs, the report warns that 25 “are at record levels,” with the warming climate potentially causing “many millions of additional deaths by 2050” and displacing hundreds of millions, perhaps even billions, of people. According to the authors, “more and more scientists have begun to research the possibility of societal collapse.”