Greta Thunberg's 'essential' climate book netted by Allen Lane

Allen Lane has netted an “essential” new book created by climate activist Greta Thunberg, who has brought together more than 100 leading experts to provide readers with “an essential tool” for saving the planet.

Chloe Currens, senior commissioning editor at Penguin Press UK, and Christopher Richards, senior editor at Penguin Press US, bought world all language rights to The Climate Book from Sigrid Stavnem at Politiken Literary Agency. It will publish on 27th October. Rights have sold to 13 international publishers.

The Climate Book presents a global overview of how the planet’s many crises connect, telling the unvarnished truth about how and why our world is changing.

Thunberg said: “This is the biggest story in the world, and it must be spoken as far and wide as our voices can carry, and much further still. That’s why I have decided to use my platform to create this book, which is based on the best science currently available – a book that covers the climate, ecological and sustainability crisis holistically. Because the climate crisis is, of course, only a symptom of a much larger sustainability crisis. My hope is that this book might be some kind of go-to source for understanding these different, closely interconnected crises.” 

Renowned scientists such as Johan Rockström, Michael Mann, Katherine Hayhoe, Friedrike Otto, Stefan Rahmstorf, Saleemul Huq and Carlos Nobre are joined by luminaries like Thomas Piketty, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Naomi Klein and Amitav Ghosh to contribute to the book.  

The synopsis says: “From melting ice shelves to indigenous sovereignty, from fast fashion to the future of food and the wider sustainability crisis, their testimonies are presented here as compelling stories of change, action and resilience, amplified throughout by telling graphs and photographs. 

“Alongside them, Greta shares her own stories of learning, demonstrating, and uncovering greenwashing around the world, revealing the extent to which we have been kept in the dark. This is one of our biggest problems, she shows, but also our greatest source of hope.

“Unless we are able to connect these dots, we will not find sustainable solutions to the climate and ecological crisis. Once we are all given the full picture, we will be able to act. If a schoolchild’s strike could ignite a global protest, what could we do collectively if we tried?”

Currens added: “In The Climate Book, Greta has proven herself to be one of our finest and most galvanising new writers. In a series of sharp, insightful and impassioned chapters, which knit the book’s different parts together, she shares her own experiences and responds to what she’s learned. Her passages on government inaction render today’s greenwashing breathtakingly clear, and her call to climate justice is unignorable. This is a unique book, alive with moral purpose, which aims to change the climate conversation forever.”