Meaningful climate action will not happen unless the story the public hears from academics, our leaders and the mainstream media is urgently updated.

In truth, time’s up for ‘last warnings’ to prevent major, irreversible climate degradation. The weather has visibly shifted, weather-related disasters are increasing. Anonymous polling has shown that climate science experts privately accept that the world is beyond the IPCC’s “final warning” of March 2023. The carbon budget for remaining below 1.5°C – the politically agreed ‘safe’ temperature rise limit – will likely be spent by the end of the decade. Impacts beyond 1.5°C are coming.

The extraordinary measures our leaders must now take to limit damage and navigate instability can’t be summoned by activists alone. Such measures require massive public motivation. The time has passed for “protecting” the public from hard truths.

Indeed, people are starting to understand things are worse than governments admit – that top-down action isn’t going to hit warp speed ‘just in time’. But far from curling up in despair, citizens are asking themselves what they can do. In workplaces, communities, and wherever people have power, they are taking climate action into their own hands – from towns trying to decarbonise, to figures in law, business and finance lobbying for ambitious climate policy.

It is vital to acknowledge and encourage this process, its momentum and the candour that underpins it. We must all now begin to recognise ourselves as a climate majority: the citizen energy that can mandate unprecedented action to protect our world.