Point of no return: a hellish ‘hothouse Earth’ getting closer, scientists say

At just 1.3C of global heating in recent years, extreme weather is already taking lives and destroying livelihoods across the globe

The world is closer than previously thought to a “point of no return” after which runaway global heating cannot be stopped, scientists have said.

Continued global heating could trigger climate tipping points, leading to a cascade of further tipping points and feedback loops, they said. This would lock the world into a new and hellish “hothouse Earth” climate far worse than the 2-3C temperature rise the world is on track to reach. The climate would also be very different to the benign conditions of the past 11,000 years, during which the whole of human civilisation developed.