20/20 vision

Saving planet from climate change and 'alternative facts'

From climate change to smartphone addiction, fake news to the workplace revolution, ST writers lay out the new decade’s challenges and their hopes and wishes

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The most daunting challenge over the next decade will be battling climate change. Nothing else comes close. Extreme heatwaves, wildfires, cyclones and floods that used to be once-in-a-century events have become almost routine catastrophes.

For many countries and millions of people around the world, climate change has become an existential risk, which will get magnified in the decade ahead. We will likely see more people displaced, more islands and coastal areas submerged, and more species prematurely extinct.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on January 12, 2020, with the headline Saving planet from climate change and 'alternative facts'. Subscribe