Jim Skea, the newly elected Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and professor of sustainable energy at Imperial College in London, has said that catastrophising climate change is leading to a sense of hopelessness, and inaction.

Speaking to German news outlet Der Spiegel and news agency DPA after his appointment, Skea warned that obsessing over the Paris Agreement target of 1.5C could result in the opposite result to that intended: "If you constantly communicate the message that we are all doomed to extinction, then that paralyses people and prevents them from taking the necessary steps to get a grip on climate change.”

Skea said that that if the 1.5C target is breached, then there will still be a world to save, even if it is a more dangerous world, but not automatically an existential threat to humanity.

Overall, Skea remains optimistic that the world can limit climate change, and that progress is accelerating.

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