It is a phenomenal fact that for the first time in history, only at the 26th conference dedicated to climate catastrophe, with the planet literally burning beneath our feet, were fossil fuels finally mentioned in the final report. Countries signed a document in which they broadly committed to "phase down" the use of one of the dirtiest fuels, namely coal. It should be added that even this was only achieved after long discussions, as China and India at the last moment categorically objected to the initial wording of "phase out". The conference president, British politician Alok Sharma, even broke down in tears at the end over this grammatical somersault that had to be performed.

In any case, all of this is of zero value; it is all just bla-bla-bla if we, as humanity, do not treat the problem with the seriousness it demands and begin to reduce the amount of emissions right now. If we, according to what scientists say, do not halve our emissions over the next eight years, we face a terrible catastrophe. And even if we succeeded in that, we cannot say for certain that we will avoid it. It would only give us a mathematical probability of about two-thirds that we will succeed in keeping the planet's warming within the 1.5-degree limit. That, according to scientists, is the critical threshold.