Is Climate Change an Existential Risk?

Speaker: Paul Edwards
Catastrophic, civilization-threatening climate change is a genuine possibility within the coming century. This talk will consider evidence that a variety of climate tipping points and other planetary boundaries have already been crossed, and that climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases may be considerably higher than recent IPCC estimates. Further, modeling of cascading risks - such as how multiple tipping points might interact if thresholds are crossed - suggests that the full impact of anthropogenic environmental change remains unknown and likely underestimated. Meanwhile, a widespread focus on high-level international and national governance obscures how denial, disinformation, and multi-layered, subnational governance processes are delaying and derailing changes needed to reach Paris Agreement goals. The talk will end with reflections on ways forward.