Susan O’Keeffe: The time for small steps is over, climate change requires big action now

The United Nations has declared a ‘code red for humanity’ but where is the code red response from world leaders?

Wildfires in Evia, Greece, this month have been described as ‘the harsh reality of climate change’. Picture: Nicolas Economou/Getty

What we haven’t drowned, we’ve scorched. Wherever we look, towns, villages, people are being swept away by monsoon-style rains or are desperately trying to escape raging fires.

The highest temperatures since records began have already been reached this year, and now scientists are warning that the Gulf Stream is weakening dramatically and is under direct threat of changing the entire balance of the oceans and the Earth.

This week, a temperature of 48.8°C was recorded ...