Marc Lopatin

It is why no matter what reality throws at it (record land & sea temperatures, delaying emission reduction targets, expanding oil exploration), the mainstream climate change narrative continues to defy gravity, sheared as it is of reckoning and loss. Fairytales impart more truth about existence.

Last month, global bank HSBC was accused of duping the public for helping to raise £37 billion for companies investing in new oil and gas fields. It shines an urgent light on why meaningful climate action remains largely illusionary.

A national poll, commissioned from market research company Ipsos as part of the report, revealed that just one in four UK adults (26%) believe global average temperatures are likely to, or definitely will, be limited to 1.5°C by 2100.

‘The public gets what the public wants’ sang a young Paul Weller on the 1979 hit Going Underground. It’s a lyric that doubles as our one-line summary of this week’s major report by the world’s leading climate scientists.