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The Conversation
The Conversation
James Dyke, Associate Professor in Earth System Science, University of Exeter

Society needs a systems update to cope with climate crisis – my new film explains why

The climate and ecological crisis is one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced. If the world fails to address it, and over the rest of this century we continue to burn fossil fuels and pump even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we’ll face catastrophe. On this much, almost all governments agree (with some notable exceptions such as the US).

Even the world’s largest oil and gas companies now acknowledge that their products are behind the alarming increase in global temperatures and that we will have to transition to alternative fuels. Eventually.

In some oil and gas firms’ net zero policies you will often see the word “eventually” or its equivalent used. Yes, they accept that the age of fossil fuels will be over, but they don’t give any end date. In fact, with continued expansion of new oil and gas fields they appear to give every indication of continuing to be fossil fuel companies for the foreseeable future.

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