THE planet, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, at the launch of yesterday’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, is on a pathway to global warming of “more than double” 1.5 degrees, an “unliveable world”. The Mitigation of Climate Change report, described by Guterres as a "file of shame", felt like an echo of many we have heard before, only more desperate, partly because the window is narrowing – to achieve 1.5 degrees we must hit peak global emissions in just three years – and partly because it comes at a time of such inattention to climate. Global warming has, in many quarters, slipped down the hierarchy of concern, usurped by war and an energy crisis.

This report, for instance, arrives at a moment when there is a new drive for fossil fuel extraction in the name of energy security. Just as the IPCC is calling for renewables over fossil fuels, we, in the UK see some Tories calling for a return of fracking and even the draining of every drop of gas from the North Sea.

Guterres, yesterday, blamed current energy policies, saying, “Some governments and business leaders are saying one thing and doing another. Simply put they are lying. And the results will be catastrophic. This is a climate emergency. Climate scientists warn that we are already close to tipping points that could lead to cascading and irreversible climate impacts. But high emitting governments and corporations are not just turning a blind eye, they are adding fuel to the flames. They are choking the planet based on vested interest and historic investments in fossil fuels.”

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The UK, host to COP26, may like to think it is a leader in such matters, but there are signs of serious back-sliding on fossil fuels now.

How has it happened that there are so many so willing to give up on the future, and not seriously seek out solutions that address both today and tomorrow? It’s not like there aren’t answers that help us with both. At the report launch, Inger Anderson, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme put it thus: “Immediate needs must be met to heat homes and to keep lights on – but as we rethink hydrocarbon supply and our dependency on fossil fuels the solution has to be to kick-start the transition to renewable and cleaner sources of energy.”

It’s only five months since the world gathered in Glasgow for COP26, but it seems like light years ago, another era, almost another zeitgeist. These IPCC reports, in recent years, have been landmark. The 1.5 Degrees report galvanised a new generation of activists. Code Red, last year, ramped up the alarm. Then, one IPCC report slipped out into the world barely noticed. That was the recent report that came out in the early weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and which seemed to sink like a stone, its message of the impacts of climate change, drowned out by the noise of war.

Right now, we might want to blame Putin and Russia for everything. But, in the future, when generations look back, there will be all too many others to point fingers at – including those in the UK, who when an energy crisis struck, advocated for oil above renewables.

They might look for instance at Boris Johnson, who has decided it would be a good idea to say no to onshore wind developments, but yes to fracked shale gas and new North Sea oil and gas licenses.

They might look at the anti net zero movement, around Nigel Farage, or shake their heads over Jacob Rees-Mogg, whose recommendation this week was, “We want to get more oil out of the North Sea... We need to be thinking about extracting every last cubic inch of gas from the North Sea.”

Or David Davis saying that we need to ramp up our oil and gas extraction to help us hit net zero – his case being that “we can secure our energy future and use the proceeds to fund carbon capture and storage – capturing carbon dioxide emissions and storing them securely underground”.

Davis is right that we do need to push forward on carbon capture and storage, and this current IPCC report states this, but this growing chorus advocating that we take what we can from the North Sea also seems like collective insanity.

And it’s not just the obsession with gas that is the problem. The people of the future might also look at the under-ambition on climate that permeates much of our politics.

Why, for instance, has there been so little action on the 81 recommendations of the Scottish citizen’s climate assembly? This week, a panel looking into its impact reported a “decline in members’ confidence” that SNP ministers were taking the body seriously.

The IPCC Mitigation report looks at how we can bring down our emissions. What’s notable about that is that it looks not only at supply but also reducing demand, a subject rarely broached by politicians. Even in the face of this energy crisis, we’ve seen too little talk about energy efficiency, insulation or adapting cities to become more walkable and serviced with better public transport.

I urge those who would drain the North Sea to read this report. Let’s not fall for the story that all we can do is save ourselves today, by extracting more gas, and let tomorrow burn. There are almost always answers that address both and we should seek those. We should keep hope alive.