Bunking climate science at Davos 2025

In a tale recounted in the 7-6 BCE text Shatapada Brahman, a fish appears to the last stranded human during floods and impending extinction, rescuing humanity from disaster.

An alarming reality of planetary apocalypse in the smouldering embers of the California wildfires confronted the World Economic Forum leaders who were gathered at Davos. One of the most pressing global challenges they perceived – now and in the years to come – is environmental collapse. Despite this, some of the biggest corporations are walking back their climate pledges. Hedge fund leaders are doubling on investments in fossil fuels and retreating from urgent clean-energy technologies like electric vehicles and wind turbines. Self-proclaimed champions of climate action such as Brazil, India, Australia, and Canada are either ramping up extraction of oil and gas or doubling down on their purchases. Such ominous developments are in the wake of President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement, the pact among 196 nations to keep global warming below catastrophic levels.

Six findings from the latest climate science, offer a glimpse of how human activity generating 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually is causing the spectacular collapse of our ecosystems:

• Dangerous warming of the Earth’s highest recorded average temperature in 2024 surpassing a long-term warming limit (1.5°Celsius and 2.7° Fahrenheit)

• Severe disruption of the world’s water cycle wreaking havoc for communities through droughts, river floodings, typhoons, and cyclones • Largest-ever mass extinction of our insect populations

• Depletions of at least 2.7 metric gigatons of marine life (as a comparison: the total mass of humans on earth is 0.4 metric gigatons) due to 90 per cent of global marine fish stock being exploited or overfished

• Heatwaves affecting 40 per cent of the world’s oceans are leading to mass coral bleaching and stripping food security from almost one billion people

• A rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide increase that is 10 times faster than it has been in the past 50,000 years.

Consider India as a case study. As the seventh most vulnerable country in the world to climate change, India is not without its share of giant ecological disasters: devastating floods in Uttarakhand, the Bellandur lake fires, rampant pollution in the Yamuna and Ganga rivers, and Himalayan glaciers that are retreating twice as fast compared to two decades ago. Some major polluters in the country include industries relying on coal.

For India, climate change isn’t just an environmental issue but has tremendous costs for its population’s health, lives, and livelihoods. In 2019 alone, toxic air resulted in an increase of 1.5 million premature deaths and an estimated loss of $36.8 billion. With a third of India’s GDP derived from sectors reliant on nature, the climate crisis could cost India up to 10 per cent of its national income and push 50 million people back into poverty. India has a real economic incentive to partake in correcting the global biodiversity catastrophe. Thus, in light of grandiose plans, be it Reliance’s proposal to build a data centre with five times the capacity of Microsoft’s projected to consume nearly 50 times India’s total energy production or mining cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, countries like India must factor in a project’s environmental burdens.

Preserving a livable planet is not at odds with economics, and in fact, its preservation sustains economic growth. The WEF leadership can create synergies between sustainability and prosperity, ensuring long-term benefits for the planet and global economies in three ways: Spotlighting the importance of climate science’s economic impact can inspire businesses to adopt sustainable practices and climate-related innovation. By decolonising the discourse that frames the Global South as dependent and instead, fostering Global South’s inter-collaboration to share solutions, resources, and knowledge, WEF can enhance its agency and innovation. Some impoverished nations may fit the narrative of ‘developing’ but this categorisation should likely exclude prosperous nations like China, India, and Saudi Arabia.

Finally, compounding our planet’s heating through increased fossil fuel-burning and deforestation can be the result of misinformation or the false belief that climate change is not real, not caused by human activities, or not as significant as scientists say it is. Partnerships involving climate scientists, universities, and research institutions can help make complex data accessible to various stakeholders and stem some misinformation around climate science. A stable climate enables peace and security on the planet. We all bear the collective responsibility of being the stewards of the environment. And this time around, there will be no fish to our rescue as most of them will have perished.