Devasting wildfires in Greece, catastrophic flooding in Germany, India and China, record breaking heat waves in the western US and Canada. 2021 has seen climate extremes hit almost every corner of the globe, with deadly consequences.

The global climate is changing and leading to more frequent extreme weather events. All the things we have spent decades being warned about are happening, with experts expecting things to get worse unless rapid and radical action is taken.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned in a report published this week, that climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying.

The report suggests within two decades, temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial level. This would breach the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Such rapid warming would bring with it further widespread devastation and extreme weather.

The IPCC also declares that the causes of climate change and the extreme weather events we are currently witnessing, is unequivocally caused by human activities.

Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning, forest destruction and other human activities are now clearly destabilising the mild climate in which civilisation begun.

Our obsession with continued consumption and growth means we are heading toward causing irreversible damage to our planet.

Now the only solutions are rapid and drastic reductions, in greenhouse gas emissions and other human activities driving climate change.

Only by doing this can we attempt to prevent the situation getting worse. Tackling climate change cannot be achieved within the boundaries of one nation state, Governments need to collaborate to avert further disasters.

Germany has already said they need to get faster in the fight against climate change, following flooding this summer. In 2019 the UK government was the first major economy to pass laws to end its contribution to global warming by 2050.

However, targets like this are just not going to be enough.

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown that we can very quickly make changes to our economies when faced with a crisis.

Governments were able to implement measures without warning and costing billions overnight, why can this approach not be taken to tackle the climate crisis?

World leaders have been warned about the gravity of the climate crisis for generations, but they have chosen to ignore it. We can no longer continue to ignore what is facing us.

The whole system needs to change, no longer can we continue to consume the planets resources and ignore the consequences.

Individual efforts are not enough when governments allow corporations to continue to burn fossil fuels, with no regard for the damage they are causing.

These corporations are reluctant to change because they want to continue making profits, at the expense of our planet.

Many also have the power to block governments implementing green policy.

We need to transition away from an economy based on profit and endless growth.

Instead, building a new system that respects ecological limits and enables a good life for everyone.