Climate change: if warming approaches 2°C, a trickle of extinctions will become a flood

The devastation wrought on tropical coral reefs will soon visit other ecosystems. Acro_Phuket/Shutterstock

As delegates discuss the climate crisis in Dubai for COP28, the dazzling variety of life found on Earth hangs in the balance.

Our world has warmed by roughly 1.2°C since the pre-industrial period. Many species are already exposed to increasingly intolerable conditions, driving some populations to die off or contract at the hottest edges of their geographic ranges. Biodiversity is feeling the heat in all ecosystems and regions, from mountain tops to ocean depths.