THE BIG STORY

“We cannot afford to fail”: A UN report is forecasting potentially catastrophic warming

In 2015, hundreds of countries signed the Paris climate agreement, aiming to limit future warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius below pre-industrial levels. As it turns out, that’s not enough: Scientists have learned the climate is changing faster than previously thought.

Now, a new UN report says the world is on track to warm by a potentially catastrophic 3.4 to 3.9 degrees Celsius by 2100. The only way to prevent the most catastrophic climate impacts is to quickly reverse this trend, a challenge that only gets harder the longer countries wait to take action.

The Group of 20 (G20) countries account for about 78% of the world’s emissions. Several are not on track to meet their individual climate pledges, including the United States and Canada.

Here’s the bad (worse?) news: the report found that even if every country across the globe was on track to meet their climate targets, the world would still be headed to warming of more than 3 degrees Celsius by 2100.

Further reading:

👉 Scientists project 1.5 degrees of warming would lead to a decline in coral reefs by between 70% and 90%.

👉From more damaging wildfires in California, more storms dumping intense rain on Texas, more coastal flooding at high tides in Florida, here’s how climate change is already impacting the US.

The Getty Fire next to the 405, Los Angeles, October 2019. Gene Blevins

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

The House Intelligence Committee says it has the evidence it needs, moving impeachment forward

After two weeks of public hearings, the committee announced that it has conclusive evidence against President Donald Trump and is entering the next phase of the impeachment inquiry.

Here’s the next step in the process: The evidence will be handed over to the Judiciary Committee after Congress returns from Thanksgiving break. That committee will then compile the evidence and determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment to the full House of Representatives.

The committee will then be responsible for writing those articles before the House votes on whether to send the issue to a trial in the Senate.

👉 Impeachment Today podcast: Ukraine's in a very real war. While the US is caught up in the impeachment madness, in Ukraine the military aid that Trump suspended is not just a thing of political intrigue — there were serious consequences to it not arriving as expected. Listen and subscribe.

SNAPSHOTS

The Supreme Court said Trump’s financial records can stay hidden for now. Two lower courts had ordered the president’s accounting firm to hand over his financial records to the House, but the Supreme Court put that on hold while it considers the case.

Federal workers are “afraid” after Trump’s anti-LGBTQ crusade at the Supreme Court. One month after the Trump administration escalated efforts at the Supreme Court to legalize anti-LGBTQ discrimination, workers at the Justice Department fear they’ll be targeted next.

Many young black voters are tired of Joe Biden clinging to Barack Obama’s legacy. The young voters say they’re tired of Biden tying the promise of his campaign to Obama’s record and what they see as older generations of black voters’ inability to see past that.

Taylor Swift’s career-defining American Music Awards performance contained a bunch of hidden details, because of course it did. Swift was honored as Artist of the Decade, and gave a performance that included hits from her whole career.

RECALLING ALL ANGELS

No one’s gonna miss the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show

After 24 years, last week Victoria’s Secret announced that its annual televised fashion show is no more. What started out as a relatively subdued lingerie show transformed into something louder and flashier, while still maintaining its roots as a lingerie store for women, created by men. Now, it’s been rendered irrelevant.

Scaachi Koul writes in-depth on why no one is going to miss a show that has fallen so out of step with what audiences are looking for — especially at a time where brands like Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty are willing to represent a more impressive range of diversity.

Here’s Koul: “...while its 2018 show clearly tried to pivot to make the brand seem like it was all about empowering women, Victoria’s Secret can’t shake itself from being the quintessential male gaze brand, making it feel woefully out of date.”

YAY FOR YEAR OF YA

15 YA books adaptations coming to screens in 2020

I, unfortunately, am broadly unable to resist a young adult novel adaptation, and so this is the earliest sign that 2020 is going to be a very good year. Inject these adaptations directly into my veins.

It takes so much courage to just show up — so celebrate yourself,

Elamin