We have now officially experienced the first full year of global warming surpassing 1.5°C.
In 2015, world leaders promised to limit global temperature rise to well below 2C as a crucial step in delaying catastrophic climate consequences, with efforts to cap it at 1.5C.
Despite the legally binding Paris Agreement, the UK government’s actions have proved to be nothing but a smoke and mirrors exercise in diplomacy – evidenced by their actions to continue subsidising fossil fuels and granting licenses for new oil and gas projects.
A landmark 2018 UN report stated that intense heatwaves, rising sea levels, and ecosystem loss were much higher at 2C of warming than at 1.5C, consequences driven by more than a century of burning fossil fuels and unequal and unsustainable energy and land use.
And while proclaiming to be ahead of the government in their climate action, UK Universities are complicit in delaying action – operating as cogs in the fossil fuel machine.
