Event: How should the world confront climate derailment risks?
Two trends characterise the current climate moment: accelerating progress, including a green technology revolution; and accelerating impacts and risks, which have been persistently underestimated. It is hoped that the former trend will prevail over the latter: that escalating climate impacts will reinforce action, breaking through the growing political deadlock. This could create a virtuous cycle, with climate consequences encouraging more action, which progressively tackles the underlying problem.
Yet the opposite can also occur: climate consequences could distract from climate action. There is growing evidence of this dynamic, for example, the climate denying Vox party gained support in the wake of the 2024 Valencia floods, a disaster partly driven by climate change. This dynamic is called ‘derailment risk’. It’s a vicious cycle: a feedback loop where the consequences of climate change get in the way of climate action, worsening the underlying problem.
This hybrid panel discussion explores these two dynamics - the reinforcement or derailment of climate action - and what they mean for the present and future of climate action, particularly in light of the ongoing overshoot of the 1.5°C global goal.
This event coincides with the launch of a report summarising the findings of a project exploring derailment risk, as well as a facilitation tool for mapping and acting on derailment risks in a variety of settings. This event is being run in partnership with the Strategic Climate Risk Initiative which was incubated in collaboration with Chatham House’s Sustainability Accelerator.
Key questions include:
Where is derailment risk already manifesting?
How will this be affected by the considerable challenges brought by overshoot of 1.5°C?
What can be done to tackle these risks going forward? How can climate action be reinforced at the same time?
