The Guardian view on the IPCC warning: a last chance to save the planet | Editorial

Tackling the climate emergency needs public funding, but without socialising the risk and allowing banks to privatise the profit

The world is only a few tenths of a degree away from the globally accepted goal of limiting warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. On current trends, we will shoot past the target within a decade. That's the warning from the world's leading scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In their last report while it is still feasible to stay within 1.5C, they warn that what governments do in the next few years to limit greenhouse gas emissions will determine whether temperatures keep rising dangerously or fall back to safe levels.

Billions of poor people who bear the least responsibility for the climate emergency are already being hit hard. Extreme weather events such as the flash floods in Turkey or Cyclone Freddy over southern Africa, which took hundreds of lives, are becoming more common occurrences. It is unequivocal, say the scientists, that human activity has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. It is also human activity that can bring temperatures down. Cutting carbon pollution and fossil fuel use by nearly two-thirds by 2035 would give humanity a decent shot at the target. The UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, spelled out what this means: an end to new fossil fuel exploration and rich countries exiting coal, oil and gas by 2040. The UK, which is opening coalmines and approving North Sea oil and gas licences, should take note.