“The mental model of the climate threat among key people—particularly in senior parts of government—has yet to catch up with the fact that the nature of the climate threat includes things like tipping points,” he says. In his view, no government is considering scenarios like ice-sheet collapse with the seriousness afforded to other high-impact risks, such as pandemics. In fact, Mr Laybourn reckons, with the possible exception of the Nordic countries, most governments have not really been thinking about them at all.

Super ironic that the countries that are going to become much more habitable to humans are the ones most interested in preventing climate change.