The 1.5C climate target is dead – to prevent total catastrophe, Cop27 must admit it | Bill McGuire

Acknowledging that climate breakdown is unavoidable is key to making fossil-fuel companies and governments take action

In his Cop27 speech this week, our will-he-go, won't-he-go prime minister said that stopping the planet dangerously overheating was still within our grasp, leaving many wondering just what planet he was on.

According to Rishi Sunak, last year's Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow was all about keeping alive the possibility of preventing the global average temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution from climbing above 1.5C. That is alive", as in connected to a drip, in a coma and suffering cardiac arrest every few hours.

Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL and the author of Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide