The published science tends to underestimate the severity of threats and the rapidity with which they might unfold.
We don't have 30 years to turn this around. Reasons why 2050 is NOT what we are asking for.
There are no guarantees with something as complex as predicting the effects of changes to the climate. Setting a distant target date is like trying to calculate exactly when you should step in while watching a group of small children playing near a cliff edge. When disaster is an imminent possibility you don't calculate how long you can leave it before acting, you do everything you can to intervene, starting immediately - this is what is known as the Precautionary Principle. The longer we wait to take profound and sweeping action, the greater the risk that we trigger feedback loops and start down an irreversible pathway towards a "Hothouse Earth".
It's clear that we should never have allowed things to get so bad. It's even worse when we realise that over half of all emissions in history have happened in the last 25 years, while our governments have been talking about dealing with the problem. The government cannot be allowed to continue to kick the ball into the long grass by setting the date for decarbonisation at 2050. We need to start acting now. The 2025 target forces us to do that, whereas 2050 condemns us to a bleak future.
The faster we act the better. We are already too late to prevent massive destruction and loss of life. Climate-breakdown-induced Droughts, floods, wildfires, typhoons and cyclones made more frequent and severe by our way of life are killing people and destroying communities right now.The question now is whether we can act in time to limit the damage - and hopefully avoid the horror of the worst case scenarios. Most evidence suggests we still just about have time. 2050 is a generation too late. That would be unforgivable, and very likely utterly catastrophic.