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Thomas Hummel, Berlin
At the end of his lecture, the climate researcher Hans-Otto Pörtner is asked to reveal his emotional world – as a person, father and grandfather. “You get impatient,” he says. You want to see a reversal. It is high time that successes were achieved. The 67-year-old sounds slightly desperate. In his capacity as senior co-author of the world climate report, he has just described the situation to dozens of listeners from politics, business and science in the Weltsaal of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. Conclusion: The climate is in the intensive care unit. If people want to avert serious consequences, they don’t have much time left.