I asked 400 scientists about the future of the planet – what they said shocked even me

For the past 16 years I have had the privilege of speaking regularly to the world’s top climate experts, but over the past year or so something started troubling me. Many appeared to have increasingly little faith in the world’s ability to keep global heating to 1.5C – and yet this remained the target at global climate negotiations.

So I decided to ask hundreds of leading scientists what they thought, to get a real feel for what was going on. What they said shocked even me. It was not just how high they expect global temperatures to rise, but also the deep level of personal anguish they felt as well.

“Scientists are human: we are also people living on this Earth, who are also experiencing the impacts of climate change, who also have children, and who also have worries about the future,” said one.

“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said another. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”

Find out more below, after this week’s climate reads.

First things first. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change produces the gold standard reports, so I approached every contactable senior author of the reports since 2018. That was 843 in total, including physical and social scientists.

The first shock I got was the very strong response rate – I got 383 replies. As I read their responses and interviewed some of the experts, I realised this reflected just how alarmed they were.

The key question was how high they thought global temperature would rise by 2100. Almost 80% of the respondents said at least 2.5C above preindustrial levels. Almost half said at least 3C – a catastrophic level of heating. Just 6% thought that 1.5C target would be achieved.

But the biggest shock I got was the level of pain among the experts who have dedicated their lives to climate research. Many used words like hopeless, broken, infuriated, scared, overwhelmed.

“We did our science, we put this really good IPCC report together and – wow – it really didn’t make a difference on the policy. It’s very difficult to see that, every time,” said one.

The future world envisaged by some respondents is frankly terrifying: famine, conflict, mass migration. Many said the world is woefully unprepared for increasing climate disasters.

A minority – 25% – thought we can keep global temperature below 2C, which is still bad given the heatwaves, floods and storms we are already seeing today.

But even these more optimistic experts were guarded. “The good news is the worst-case scenario is avoidable,” said one. But he also expected that “our societies will be forced to change and the suffering and damage to lives and livelihoods will be severe”.

What is stopping climate action? The scientists pointed overwhelmingly to one barrier: lack of political will, cited by almost 75% of respondents. That mirrored their thoughts on the most effective action people can take – voting for politicians backing climate action.

Lobbying by fossil fuel vested interests, disinformation and inequality were also widely cited barriers. Relatively few thought lack of finance was an issue. A quarter of the experts had taken part in climate protests.

Importantly, none were giving up. There has been climate progress and “every 10th of a degree matters a lot – this means it is still useful to continue the fight”, said one.

Overall, the survey results seem like a particularly stark warning about the urgency of action, given it is coming from hundreds of climate experts, the most knowledgable people on the planet.

I’ll give the last word to one of the guarded optimists: “I am convinced that we have all the solutions needed for a 1.5C path and that we will implement them in the coming 20 years. But I fear our actions might come too late and we cross one or several climate tipping points.”

Read more on global heating:

The good news

The bad news

Profiling an inspiring individual, suggested by Down to Earth readers

Growing up, Danish campaigner Selina Juul remembers that her family wasn’t the wealthiest, and that “food waste was never an option – we literally had to save every crumb”.

As an adult, she started the Stop Wasting Food movement, which fights to combat food waste and redirect unwanted food to those in need – and is part of the reason Denmark became a world leader in tackling the issue. The campaign now operates an online free-food platform that “makes it easier and faster for food insecure citizens to get quick access to free local surplus food in a dignified way”.

For Juul, shame is not the aim. “It’s not about what you are doing wrong – it’s about what you can do better,” she says. “There are only winners in the fight against food waste because you will save your time, your money, help climate and help saving the planet. Stop wasting food is a win-win cause.”

Nominated by reader Marianna Hauge

If you’d like to nominate a climate hero, email downtoearth@theguardian.com

Demystifying a climate concept you’ve heard in the headlines

The projected amounts of greenhouse gases that may be emitted depending on selected courses of action. A “business as usual” trajectory that does not accelerate emissions cuts will result in higher temperatures than an ambitious CO2-cutting trajectory which quickly phases out fossil fuel use.

For more Guardian coverage of emissions, click here

One image from the week in environmental news

Credit: Anadolu/Getty Images

San Francisco’s Pier 39 is well known as a gathering spot for sea lions, where the animals rest in view of locals and tourists.

Last week, however, was something else – more than 1,500 of the “charming pinnipeds”, as the Guardian’s Maanvi Singh describes them in her report, came together for the largest congregation the pier has seen in at least 15 years.

Why? “The gathering has been attracted to a feast of anchovies in the bay,” Singh reports. The pier tweeted from its official account: “With a steady food supply from a large school of anchovy, the sea lions are extra active.”

For more of the week’s best environmental pictures, catch up on The Week in Wildlife here