Media coverage

“We are still looking at the numbers from last year, but I think it is happened. If we have peaked in emissions from fossil fuels, and I think we have, this is a historic moment,” Bill Hare told the Sydney Morning Herald. He said the turning point is significant because it demonstrates that a generation of difficult diplomacy and politics, of innovation and inventiveness, is starting to pay off in measurable change.

"Adaptation options have limits", Fahad Saeed told the New York Times. At 1.5 degrees of warming, the risk of heat stroke on the hajj would increase five times compared to a world without warming, he said. At two degrees the risk doubles to ten times higher.

"The Hajj has operated in a hot climate for over a millennium, but the climate crisis is exacerbating these conditions," said Carl-Friedrich Schleussner told the BBC.

"The authorities in Saudi Arabia are going for adaption options - but adaptation options have their limits," Fahad Saeed told Channel 4 News. "So unless we stop emissions and abide by the Paris Agreement I'm afraid that we will continue to see such calamities."

Climate Analytics Africa organised a series of strategic civil society dialogues to support the co-development of a long-term low-carbon and climate-resilient development vision for Togo.

"Saudi Arabia is the biggest oil exporter... it is also one of the hottest countries in the world," Fahad Saeed told the Jakarta Post. The kingdom needs "to make this transformation of their economy towards greener options, towards more renewables, because it is also host of this very important haj". If conditions worsen, there is a risk that "we are going to lose some of the rituals" seen as essential to the pilgrimage, he said.

"I wouldn't panic about it right now," Bill Hare told SBS News. Some years are warmer than the long-term temperature trend, and others were cooler, and the natural variability in the climate system appeared to be "quite big", he said. "The thing that people need to understand is the long-term trend is alarming — and that's not going to slow down until we reduce emissions".

The Wall Street Journal quotes from our G7 brief that none of the G7 members are on track to meet emissions reduction targets for 2030.

"Generally, loss and damage in the Caribbean is reported as economic costs associated with a climate-related event, mainly hurricanes and floods," Sasha Jattansingh told the St. Vincent Times. "Many other climate hazards considered important by SIDS tend to go unreported, especially slow onset events such as drought, sea level rise, sargassum blooms or coral bleaching," she added.

The Australian government’s Future Made in Australia plan aims to turn the country into a “renewable energy superpower” by investing in homegrown green industries. "There is a very deep contradiction at the heart of the two policies," Bill Hare told the BBC, "the Future Made in Australia [plan] is playing second fiddle to the government’s gas strategy.”