As 25,000 people from 200 countries were converging on Madrid this week for the start of climate change talks, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres voiced this stern warning:
When it comes to climate change, “the point of no return is no longer over the horizon. It is in sight and hurtling toward us.”
As sobering as it was, Guterres's statement had a hopeful flip side: We can still avoid crossing that Rubicon into the realm of dangerous climate change — if only we get more serious at cutting emissions of climate-altering carbon dioxide.
That's ultimately the whole point of these annual Conference of the Parties meetings, or COPs — finding ways to galvanize global action on climate change.
But there's just one problem: Research on past climates suggests we've already hurtled past one significant point of no return, one that should prompt us to pay more attention to adapting to climate change.
