Introduction

In late October of 2022, the UN Environment Programme (2022) published its annual emissions gap report, entitled ‘The Closing Window’, a reference to the report's main conclusion, namely that there is ‘no credible pathway to 1.5°C in place’. The failure to reduce carbon emissions suggested that the only way to limit the most catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis was a ‘rapid transformation of societies’. The report's stark conclusion was based on an analysis of CO₂ cuts pledged by countries and the reductions needed to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C, the agreed target set in Paris in 2015. Pointing out that progress had been ‘woefully inadequate’ and that even if current pledges were delivered fully by 2030, global temperatures would still rise by about 2.5°C, the report noted that a rise of 1°C had already been associated with a range of climate calamities across the planet.