On climate change targets, can success be relative?

We’re just days away from the most important climate conference since the landmark Paris Agreement of 2015, and it is confronting world leaders with two very different challenges.

One is dominating the pre-conference headlines. It is the urgent need for governments to rediscover their will, and reaffirm their wavering commitment, to prevent a climate emergency from escalating into a climate catastrophe.

A United Nations report last week spoke of a “wasted year” since last year’s climate conference, lamenting the “negligible”