Only you know if we did it

September 15, 2025

The year 2024 was when we exceeded 1.5 degrees, and on land this warming climbed to 1.8 degrees. Our carbon budget will be spent by October 2027. There is not enough suitable land on the planet for the necessary level of afforestation to offset fossil fuel emissions.

At home, the Great Barrier Reef has suffered record losses of live coral cover. All this, again, made for difficult reading. All those with the power to make decisions to turn things around will all be gone by the time we genuinely acknowledge what needed to be done in 2025. Sainsbury concluded with the most heart-wrenching words of all.

Iceland’s letter to the future is written on a plaque, in Icelandic and English, and dated August 2019, 415 ppm CO2: “Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years, all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.”