Daniele Visioni

Assistant Professor, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Daniele Visioni is an assistant professor specializing in geoengineering and climate interventions and is a co-author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

Visioni says: 

“I’m glad the new UN report puts an end to the pretense that 1.5C was somehow still within reach. While reaching zero emissions worldwide is necessary and non-negotiable, and the sooner the better, it also won’t be enough alone to avoid the risks that every added tenth of a degree will bring.

“It is time to talk seriously about a broader portfolio of interventions – even the ones UNEP is not yet ready to discuss – that might help reduce the impacts of dangerous climate change in the short and long term and be open and transparent about their potential benefits and risks, and about the need to discuss their governance now and not in a remote future.”

Rachel Bezner Kerr

Professor, Department of Global Development

Rachel Bezner Kerr is the director of the Institute for African Development at Cornell University and another IPCC author working on the panel’s next climate change assessment. 

Bezner Kerr says: 

“We are already witnessing the severe impacts that climate change is having on our food systems, our homes, our health and our shared planet. This past year alone there were devastating wildfires and deadly heatwaves in North America and Europe, severe drought in East Africa, disastrous flooding in Nepal and extreme tropical storms in the Caribbean.

“This latest UN report is a clarion call for action – but carbon removal is not a panacea. While large scale carbon removal may be needed as one tool in our climate action toolkit, these solutions pose additional risks, potentially reducing land available for food production and negatively impacting both nature and communities.

“We need to act now, pressure governments to recognize the need for climate action, and do the hard work of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. All of us will benefit from this tough action – and all of us will suffer without it.”

Douglas Graham MacMartin

Associate Professor

Douglas MacMartin is an associate professor with research focusing on Sunlight Reflection Methods, also known as climate engineering, solar geoengineering, or climate intervention.

MacMartin says:

“It was obvious ten years ago that we were going to overshoot the 1.5C target, and likely worse, so in that sense the only thing new in this report is that finally people are admitting what they should have been saying ten years ago.  

“The real challenge with this report is that it doesn't really engage with the seriousness of the problem, but rather it continues to rely on hope, and hope is not in and of itself a strategy. The report deliberately ignores one of the options that could be used to limit damages from climate change, namely reflecting a tiny amount of sunlight back to space, or Sunlight Reflection Methods (SRM). We don't know enough about that option today, but we shouldn't wait for catastrophic impacts before admitting that we need to learn about it.”