‘We have solutions in play. But we need to go faster’

Piers Forster likens climate change to being on a train with a bridge out somewhere along the track. He’s not sure how far away the plummet is. “If we don’t put on the brakes now, the train might fall into the chasm,” he says.

Forster, 53, is a physicist and professor of physical climate change at University of Leeds, UK. He is also director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate, and co-founder of the United Bank of Carbon, a forest protection and research charity.

He was also a coordinating lead author on the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released this August.

Forster has been a teacher for more than two decades. His class is twice as large as in previous years, and he notices that young people are concerned about the real dangers of climate change. They understand how difficult it is to change societies by democratic means.

He attempts to instil in them a sense of hope that a better future is on the horizon. “I try to give them the tools they need to go out and play important roles in repairing our world,” he says. “I never fail to be inspired by their enthusiasm and passion.”

His biggest fear is that people might not realise the urgency of climate change until it’s too late.

“But I’m an optimist,” he says. The world is installing renewable energy systems and manufacturing electric cars. Trees are being planted. Coal power stations are being closed down. “We have the solutions and they are beginning to be deployed, but we need to go faster. Our climate, our air quality and our health depends on success.”

He believes one of the biggest obstacles is communication. The gap between what scientists say and what the public hears about climate change has been a major source of frustration to him. He wishes, he says, that in decades past they had done a better job of talking about what they understood rather than what they didn’t. Even if they had, he admits, it would have taken a lot to reverse global reliance on burning fossil fuels.

The hope is that, 20 years from now, things will look very different, in a good way. “By then, we could be beginning to stabilise temperatures by getting net emissions close to zero.” If not, the climate crisis will have intensified, there will be worse flooding and heatwaves and more people dying,

It’s heartening to him that his 18-yearold daughter Harriet Forster wrote her first climate research paper in 2020. Across his own sphere of influence, he talks to people about the things he’s doing to reduce his carbon footprint, in ways that “make being green seem as normal and as easy as possible”.

A zero-emissions world would be a better world in so many ways, Forster says. “It would be healthier, safer, more equitable, with a better future for our children. We adults need to get out of their way so they can create this better world.”

The hope is that, 20 years from now, things will look very different, in a good way. By then, we could be getting net emissions close to zero.