“Unless there are immediate and large-scale greenhouse gas emission reductions, the average global temperature is likely to reach or cross the 1.5- degree Celsius warming threshold within 20 years,” states the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the report as a “code red for humanity” in a statement and said, “This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet.”

This report isn’t solitary. Countless reputable global organisations have been warning us about the devastating impact of climate change for years now. The pandemic has taken centre stage in the media for the past year and a half, and natural disasters around the world — from Australia to the United States of America — have shaken our collective consciousness in the same period.