The world hasmoved past 1.5 degrees into overshoot, and the systems we depend on are losingtheir stability. This independent report from the Climate Crisis Advisory Groupasks what it would take to hold Earth's systems within safe limits, and whoshould lead that work. It finds that the research needed to understand our mostdangerous possibilities is fragmented, under-funded and in places being ledprivately, just as the satellites and science that let us see are being cut.Its case is that this research should be pulled into the open, funded properlyand led by a coalition of willing governments, before events decide for us.Above all it is a call for research, not deployment, with cutting emissions asthe foundation that nothing can replace.
• The Earth is dimming, and heating faster. Itis reflecting less sunlight back into space than at any point in millennia, andthe rate at which it traps heat has roughly doubled in a generation.
• We are going blind just as the risks rise. Mostclimate models stop at 2100, and NOAA's next generation of satellites has beencut from six spacecraft to four with key instruments cancelled, even as systemslike the Atlantic circulation may be nearing a tipping point.
• No one is convening the frontier research. Whatwork exists is scattered and under-funded, and in that vacuum some of the mostconsequential research, on solar radiation modification and marine carbonremoval, is being done privately and ahead of the public science.
• Governments are banning rather thangoverning. Lawmakers in many US states have moved to make field researchillegal and the UN Environment Assembly could not agree even an expert review,leaving the field shaped by prohibition and private money rather than publicoversight.
• The research is cheap against the stakes. TheUS National Academies costed a national programme at $100 to 200 million overfive years, a fraction of a single science budget, while Swiss Re estimates 3.2degrees of warming could cut global GDP by 18% by 2050.
• Those who did least to cause this stand tolose the most. Around 1.2 billion people already live in areas exposed tofloods, droughts, cyclones or heatwaves, and the report insists the mostexposed must help lead the research, not merely be consulted on it.
CCAG calls fora coalition of willing governments to lead publicly funded, openly governedresearch into stabilising Earth's systems, on the model of the 57 countriesthat met in Santa Marta in 2026. Around that sit four asks: a sustainedincrease in public research funding on the scale of Mission Innovation,additional to climate finance and never taken from mitigation or adaptation; anamed senior minister for stabilisation in every government; common,stage-gated rules so the science is done transparently, with no research bans;and every commitment tied to faster emissions cuts. Three principles holdthroughout: research, not deployment; cutting emissions first, with nosubstitute; and the most exposed helping to lead.
