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2021 a make or break year for humanity to respond to runaway global warming
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World leaders attending virtually the Leaders Summit on Climate in the East Room of the White House in Washington, on April 23, 2021.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
WASHINGTON - After years of false starts, the just-concluded two-day Climate Summit of 40 countries convened by US President Joe Biden did seem to be a new beginning - a "last best chance", as the President's climate change envoy John Kerry put it.
Yet while some leaders made public pledges, most were non-specific. That is why even the most optimistic are only cautiously so. If humanity is to avert 3 deg C or more of warming above pre-industrial levels, which it is on track for now, serious action needs to start now - and nowhere more urgently than in the United States.
