The world started to wake up to climate change in 2019 – now what?

At last, the public is calling for urgent action to tackle global warming and politicians are falling over themselves to get on board, says Adam Vaughan

By Adam Vaughan

Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images

REPORTING on the doomsday beat, which is how I often think about climate change, is fascinating, but can also be deeply depressing. This year, scientists predicted even higher future sea level rises, carbon emissions marched upwards and the Amazon was on fire. Donald Trump recently started the formal process of taking the US out of the Paris climate deal.

Despite this backdrop, there are signs 2019 may have been the year the world woke up to the need for fast and serious action on climate change. A year ago, the names of Greta Thunberg, the protest …