Wildfires in California in January 2025 David McNew/Getty Images The impacts of climate change are occurring sooner than expected, but governments and businesses continue to underestimate the risks, which could add up to trillions of dollars in economic losses by 2050. A report by climate scientists and financial experts has warned that the world may have seriously underestimated the rate of warming and faces “planetary insolvency”, where global warming begins to severely damage both the environment and economic growth. Decision-makers typically focus on the middle-ground estimates of climate impacts. But they should be preparing for the worst-case scenarios instead, the report says, since impacts like short-term precipitation extremes in some regions are happening earlier than anticipated. “Governments need to agree on a planetary solvency plan quickly,” says David King, former top climate adviser to the UK government who contributed to the report. “We are looking at an accelerated rate of temperature rise. We’re not sure if that will continue into the future but we can probably assume it’s not going to relax backwards.” A first …