The Unnatural Selection

Wildfires, extreme weather, natural disasters. Even denial has a limit. While for citizens in high-income countries climate change felt like a distant, hovering presence, 2026 has been a ruthless reality check.

In September 2026, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published what appears to be one of the most impactful reports of the decade, titled “Limiting Overshoot – Navigating exceedance of 1.5°C and pathways towards return,” which is both an admission of failure and an urgent call to action. We failed to keep the global temperature below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels; there is nothing we can do anymore to avoid overshoot, as even the most optimistic projections put expected peak temperature rise at 1.8°C.

Wrongful Conviction

UNEP acknowledges that “there are no benign scenarios with global temperature rise above 1.5°C,” but temperature can still return below the threshold if we immediately implement measures to limit the magnitude, duration and consequences of overshoot. The impacts, which include more extreme heat, wildfires, changes to the cryosphere and higher likelihood of collapse of ecosystems, will be felt worldwide. However, the intensity of these impacts will differ by country.

If the worst comes to pass, humanity will not face the ultimate extinction, rather an unnatural selection. Pre-existing inequalities across all areas will heighten to a greater extent. UNEP warns that negative impacts of overshoot will not be distributed equally, and some of them will be irreversible: “Extreme weather, glacier melt, ecosystem loss and sea-level rise will intensify. Some Small Island Developing States and low-lying coastal cities could be partially or completely submerged. […] Human health, food and water security, cities and infrastructure will come under increasing strain.” Socioeconomic conditions will often amplify climate-related risks, shaping exposure, vulnerability and response capability.

Many will be forced to leave their land, others will perish, and the survivors will endure poverty along with worsening health conditions, all whilst leaders and corporations in high-income countries keep chasing artificial excess.
In nature, recklessness and greediness get intrinsically punished because most of their actions go against their own survival. Usually, this applies to a single individual who decides for themselves and responds to their own actions. In the context of climate change, the situation is different; an elite is recklessly deciding for others, playing with their lives and treating them as discardable pawns on a chess board, in a game they never agreed to play. The ones who are challenging nature are losing, yet the punishment is borne by everyone but them – for now.

A recent example is the glacier collapse that caused a series of devastating flash floods in Nepal and China in August 2026. As the script goes, Nepal contributes less than 0.1% of global emissions, nonetheless it got hit by an exceptional disaster widely regarded as climate related.

Accountability

From the foreword up until the last page, the UNEP report entices immediate global action and urges accountability. It’s extremely important to avoid every additional fraction of a degree for a better chance of bringing temperatures back down. Every effort, big or small, matters.

“To succeed [in limiting overshoot], we need stronger political will and multilateralism, and more agile and inclusive governance, with equity and justice at the core of all action”, writes UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen, “Countries with greater historical responsibility for climate change should act the fastest and with the greatest ambition.”

Reducing emissions requires unprecedented governance capacity, policy coherence, investments in technology and innovation and scale up finance. Part of that multilateral effort must lead to a “fundamental rethink” to long-term governance to include and respect the countries disproportionately affected by climate change. “[We need] to ensure that those who have contributed least to global warming are not left to bear its greatest burdens,” Andersen stresses. Historical emitters of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) should build a just and equitable governance framework capable of adapting to the three phases of overshoot, peak and decline. Strong international cooperation is essential to coordinate actions across borders and generations.

On paper the plan flows smoothly, but it doesn’t take professional analysis to assess that the current political climate is light years away from implementing the correct measures. On the contrary, the most responsible leaders are going the opposite direction.

Strength in Numbers

A country doesn’t only consist of its leaders. In countries where political rights are protected, citizens hold greater power than they realise. Citizens’ votes and actions have the power to influence a multitude of aspects: they get to decide who represents them, thus deciding who becomes richer, who gains more public appreciation, who becomes a player in geopolitical scenarios. When a leader is elected, citizens also have the right to protest and express their dissent.

That is why citizens in high-income, democratic countries should feel the duty to act promptly and collectively to ask for better governance, equity and environmental protection – not just for their own country, but for whoever is already affected by climate related events and can’t freely express their opinion.
Collective action starts with the individual. The label of “climate activist” can’t belong to just a small portion of society anymore.

Daily life must now account for climate action as the norm; for that to happen, it needs to become a widespread mentality. The concept behind it is simple: follow the main principle of sustainability, which means meeting your needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs.

Every citizen in high-income countries can and should contribute to sustainable development – to the best of their abilities – by following sustainable practices during daily life, like energy efficiency, waste reduction, and improving transport and food choices.

It may feel disheartening to witness governments and corporations, and the billionaires at the top, polluting the planet with no regard for life. But it’s even more disheartening to witness natural reserves burning to ashes, indigenous villages being swept away, population left homeless when they had no fault in it.
A country usually consists of a few leaders and millions of citizens. We often forget where the majority stand.

To Act or Not to Act

When it comes to collective climate action, groups and institutions are often forced to walk a fine line to succeed in motivating citizens to connect, collaborate and act to reach a common goal. It’s a delicate balance between fatalism and privilege of inaction, where only the middle ground leads to movement. That leaves a lot of room for political and commercial actors, mainly in the fossil fuel sector, to either push for catastrophic narratives or deny the problem entirely.

Climate change denial has become increasingly difficult to sell, considering the public has been witnessing unprecedented disasters almost daily. Denying climate change is not the easiest option anymore. Consequently, the door to fatalism can easily open.

With no hesitation from malicious actors, UNEP’s report has been used as a tool to instill dread and paralyzing climate anxiety on social media. Hyperboles and devastating scenarios were at the core of strategic news titles, many of which instantly went viral. “It’s over. We failed and there is nothing anyone can do anymore.” But this narrative couldn’t be further from the truth and is the product of sensationalistic and fear-mongering news titles aimed at deterring climate action.

The Earth of It

No one will come and save humanity from itself. To stand and watch frozen in privilege can’t be an option. As impossible, frightening and doomed as it may seem, whoever has the freedom and the means to act, owes it to the Earth, to who is already suffering, and to future generations to at least try.

Surely, sustaining motivation every single day can be a difficult task, thus it’s important to strip this multisectoral, intricate problem from its complexities and keep in mind just the heart of it. There stands humanity’s relationship with the Earth. Respecting the planet and every living being on it – including each other – is the North Star to this treacherous path.

“If the 4.5-billion-year history of Earth were compressed into 24 hours, humans would appear only in the final moments before midnight,” said astrophysicist Carl Sagan. We are but guests. Every human has a right to live on this planet as much as everyone else, thus this unprecedented effort must account for every single population and country on Earth.
If we manage to succeed, it seems that the greatest feat humanity will ever accomplish won’t be in the name of progress, but in saving itself from t ruinous attempt at it.

Elisabetta Fenu