Why the IPCC’s Latest Report Should Spur a Rush to Adapt

What are the main points? Many argue, including the IPCC’s own press release, that we need to focus on the “narrowing window” for action to stay within 1.5˚C (2.7˚F) warming. We must keep hope alive and focus on cutting emissions steeply and fast. Of course, this is essential – but, in the clear-eyed words of The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert, “[T]o imagine at this point that the latest warning from the I.P.C.C. will spur action, when so many previous ones have failed to, requires not just hope but, it would seem, something close to delusion.”