Global collapse—Fact or fiction?

This paper seeks to answer the following question: Is it possible that the slow societal response to the emerging climate crisis may result in “global collapse”—that is, a situation were global society first exceeds the sustainable rate of greenhouse gas emissions, and then experiences a sudden, unwanted, and unstoppable decline in the average welfare of hundreds of millions of its citizens?Certainly, global collapse can be avoided if society decides to act in time, and even at a reasonable cost. Still, global collapse is a possibility in the 21st century, because of the numerous good reasons to postpone societal response, because of the inertia in the climate system, and because there exist self-reinforcing mechanisms that may lead to runaway temperature increase once certain thresholds are surpassed.The paper argues, finally, that climate-induced global collapse, even if it did indeed occur, would not necessarily be described by future historians as such. The collapse could well be reported as a case of bad global management.Global collapse could remain fiction, even if it proved to be fact.