Time - USA (2021-11-08)

4 Time November 8/November 15, 2021

in 1989, when TIME chose The endan-

gered Earth as Planet of the Year, in lieu of the

usual Person of the Year, the critics pounced.

The article itself quoted a University of Cali-

fornia scientist who called the greenhouse

effect “the laugh of the century.”

One reader wrote that the contents

of the article “are an excellent ex-

ample of the solid waste problem.”

The skeptics piled in again 30 years

later, when I opened a 2019 special

climate issue commemorating the

Endangered Earth by simply stat-

ing that the scientific fact of global

warming is settled and that there

isn’t another side.

Today, as 20,000 delegates from

196 countries head to Glasgow for

the most important global gathering

on climate change in years, it’s

easy to be cynical about the world’s

commitment to addressing its

existential crisis. President Xi

Jinping of China, which recently

announced plans for 43 new coal-

fired power plants, as well as leaders

of some nations that have shown

the most hesitancy for change,

including Brazil, Mexico and

Russia, are skipping the conference.

Global emissions levels, after seeing

rare declines during the pandemic,

are on the rise again. Many of

the promises made at COP21 in

Paris, the last major global climate

summit, have been broken.

And yet there has been consider-

able progress over the past couple

of years. Before COP21 in 2015, the

world was on track to be more than

4°C hotter by the end of this century

than at the dawn of the industrial

era; that number has since come

down to just under 3°C—still twice

what is sustainable, but real prog-

ress. And there is, more than ever, a shared un-

derstanding of the reality we face. More than

99.9% of peer-reviewed scientific papers at-

tribute climate change primarily to humans,

according to a new Cornell University review

of nearly 90,000 studies. After a year of un-

precedented droughts, fires, floods and storms,

climate change has emerged as the dominant

issue of our time. You can see it in the resolute

shift in investor priorities toward a carbon-free

future; in the deluge of money into

much-needed innovation toward

clean energy and carbon sequestra-

tion; and increasingly in the policy

discussions of the world’s biggest

economies. “Climate change seems

finally to be taking the central role

in public discourse that it should

have been holding for decades,”

says science editorial director Eli-

jah Wolfson, who oversaw this

issue. “The global response to cli-

mate change is now the underlying

framework for everything else that

society debates.”

The four covers for our editions

around the globe capture different

pathways we must take to make

further progress. John Kerry,

profiled by Justin Worland, is

undertaking a late-career act as Joe

Biden’s climate czar to return the

U.S. to global leadership in these

efforts. Linda Zhang, the Ford

engineer who has electrified the

most popular truck in America,

shows the promise of technological

innovation. Vanessa Nakate, the

24-year-old Ugandan climate

activist, calls for listening to the

voices of others like her. And the

painter Tim O’Brien, who has

illustrated more TIME covers

than any artist in recent history,

highlights the importance of global

collaboration at COP26 itself.

“Nothing globally is more urgent

than nations dealing with climate

change,” says O’Brien, who notes

that he added the empty chairs to reflect what

is not being done. “The uninvited guest is how

we all should see climate change, that it will

drastically alter our comfort and future if not

addressed.”

Edward Felsenthal,

ediTor-in-chief & ceo

@efelsenThal

The global

response

to climate

change is now

the underlying

framework

for everything

else that

society

debates

From the Editor

Signs of progress

ONTHECOVERS:

g p y

Jingyu Lin for TIME