Thread by @leahstokes

For so many climate researchers, 2020 was a deadline. It felt like it was far in the future, and that we would make progress.

Now that it is here, and we have not even started bending the emissions curve, I am incredibly sad.
washingtonpost.com/climate-enviro…

I wrote a paper back in 2014. We looked at what the United States, China, India and the EU had pledged to do by 2020 to limit warming.

Although I haven’t done a full accounting, suffice it to say: these goals were largely missed.
pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.102…

The last decade was terrible for climate action. We saw rollbacks and inaction. More climate denial and climate delay.

Until the last 18 months, when activism and state action began to kick up, there was little to celebrate from 2010-2020 for mitigation.
nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/1…

According to the Copenhagen Accord, we were supposed to reduce U.S. emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. We likely won't meet even this modest target.

We are still moving in the wrong direction on carbon emissions.
washingtonpost.com/national/healt…

My wish for the coming decade: we wake up to the climate crisis already on our doorsteps.

May the fossil fuel era end.