Urgency and hope...

The significance of COP26, taking place from Sunday 31 October to Friday 12 November in Glasgow, really can’t be overstated. Six years ago, world nations came together to sign the Paris Agreement, throwing down the gauntlet for a world of warming ‘well below 2°C’ compared to pre-industrial times, and below 1.5°C if possible. Today, we are not on track.

The official website for COP26 describes the conference as the world’s ‘best last chance’ to get runaway climate change under control. We felt that these were the perfect words to grace our cover this month, summing up both the urgency surrounding this most important of global summits, but also the hope that still remains. As many of the experts we spoke to for this special climate issue of Geographical reiterated – there is still time to stave off the worst impacts of this crisis. But we really must start now. There are several different paths we could have taken when compiling an issue all about climate change. It would have been perfectly valid to focus on the calamitous effects that are already taking place around the world, and that are only set to increase as CO2 continues to rise. We did so in our last climate special in March 2014 and we certainly mention many of these impacts in these pages too. But, with COP taking place on our home shores, and as we watch on, hopeful to see a new surge of ambition from many nations, we felt a different approach was appropriate.

As Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy says on page 72, there is hope in science, and ‘in the knowledge that our choices will still determine our future’. We agree. There is also hope in the many individuals working on this issue and in the broad societal changes underway. We have therefore chosen to focus on the people, the science and the politics that can cure our planet and curb our most self-destructive tendencies, while never shying away from the scale of the challenge ahead. From the technological and economic tools being used to save tropical forests (page 22), to the weird and wonderful techniques being employed to adapt to the changes already underway (page 36), we have honed in on potential solutions and inspiring stories. These are stories that come from every sector and corner of the world. On page 64, we consider the lawyers and judges forcing governments and fossil fuel giants to make drastic changes. On page 42, we hear from climate leaders in the Global South, who talk through the unique set of challenges they face and the pioneering work being done in difficult circumstances. And, on page 50, we highlight the work being done at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, where researchers make the most of a new fleet of autonomous marine technologies which are changing the face of ocean research. Throughout, we have interspersed these longer stories with ‘climate focus’ snapshots, in which we hear from people at the cutting edge of climate research, activism and advocacy.

We hope that this issue operates as a useful companion to COP26. At the start of the magazine we set out the history of these conferences, the key phrases and concepts that are important to them, and we highlight areas to watch out for as the delegates come together in Glasgow. At the back, we offer some advice as to what you can do next, and suggestions for further reading. But most of all, we hope you come away with a sense of the enormous challenge that awaits us, along with the knowledge that it isn’t too late. We are now approaching our last chance to curb the climate crisis, but with more people than ever behind the cause, more brain power, more activism and more human ingenuity, our last chance is also our best one.