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Opinion
Andreas Kluth

Fighting Putin Comes Before Climate Change

We already had to wean ourselves off fossil fuels for the sake of the planet. Now we need to do it for our self-defense as well.

For the climate, too.

For the climate, too.

Photographer: Omer Messinger/Getty Images

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On the day Russia launched its all-out attack on Ukraine, Svitlana Krakovska was holed up in her home city of Kyiv, working feverishly to finish a report. As leader of the Ukrainian delegation to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), she and scientists around the world were dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s of their sixth assessment of global warming and its threats to humanity. 

But then Russian artillery started exploding all around her, and Krakovska and her team members had to scurry to the nearest bomb shelters.