NEW YORK – The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is unambiguous. Humanity has already emitted enough greenhouse gases to raise the atmospheric temperature by at least 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This will cause extreme and irreversible climate change over the next two decades.

There is still time to prevent catastrophic global warming, but it will require reducing carbon dioxide emissions 80% by 2030 and 100% by 2050. And while United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called the latest report a “code red for humanity,” an effective response remains far from guaranteed.

As it stands, the UN’s annual Emissions Gap Report 2020 shows that the rich OECD countries are not reducing their emissions fast enough, and developing economies are on track to continue increasing theirs. In advance of November’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, world leaders are rushing to agree on more ambitious emissions-reduction goals – so-called nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Recognition of the need for climate action has never been stronger.

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Clair Brown is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Work, Technology, and Society at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Buddhist Economics: An Enlightened Approach to the Dismal Science.