“It’s too late to stop Antarctic ice melt.” But “the Greenland ice sheet might be more resistant to warming than we thought”, according to various recent studies. So should we stop worrying? Or give up on climate action? As we speed towards this year’s UN Climate Conference COP28, to be held in – of all places – oil-rich Dubai, while wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine are distracting attention from the planet-threatening climate crisis, what we need is not complacency or resignation but a heightened sense of urgency.