IPCC’s 2018 Spe­cial Report is a stark and brac­ing reminder of cli­mate threats. Yet lit­er­a­ture, reportage, and pub­lic dis­course reflect imbal­anced risk and oppor­tu­nity. Cli­mate sci­ence often under­states changes’ speed and non­lin­ear­ity, but Inte­grated Assess­ment Mod­els (IAMs) and sim­i­lar stud­ies often under­state real­is­tic mit­i­ga­tion options. Since ~2010, global mit­i­ga­tion of fos­sil CO₂—includ­ing by often-​​uncounted mod­ern renew­able heat com­pa­ra­ble to solar-​​plus-​​wind electricity—has accel­er­ated to about the pace (if sus­tained) needed for a 2 °C tra­jec­tory. Mit­i­ga­tion has uncer­tain­ties, emer­gent prop­er­ties, fea­si­bil­ity thresh­olds, and non­lin­ear­i­ties at least com­pa­ra­ble to climate’s, cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for aggres­sive action. Renew­able electricity’s swift uptake can now be echoed as proven inte­gra­tive design can make end-​​use effi­ciency sev­er­al­fold larger and cheaper, often with increas­ing returns (lower cost with ris­ing quan­tity). Saved energy—the world’s largest decar­bonizer and energy ‘source’ (big­ger than oil)—can then poten­ti­ate renew­ables and cut sup­ply invest­ments, as a few recent efficiency-​​centric IAMs con­firm. Opti­miz­ing choices, com­bi­na­tions, tim­ing, and sequenc­ing of tech­nolo­gies, urban form, behav­ioral shifts, etc could save still more energy, money, and time. Some rig­or­ous engineering-​​based national stud­ies out­side stan­dard cli­mate lit­er­a­ture even imply poten­tial 1.5 °C global tra­jec­to­ries cheaper than business-​​as-​​usual. A com­ple­men­tary opportunity—rapidly and durably abat­ing hydro­car­bon indus­tries’ delib­er­ate upstream CH₄ releases from flares and engi­neered vents, by any large operator’s prof­itably abat­ing its own and oth­ers’ emissions—could sta­bi­lize (or more) the global methane cycle and buy time to abate more CO₂. Together, these find­ings jus­tify sober recal­i­bra­tion of the prospects for a fairer, health­ier, cooler, and safer world. Sup­ported by other dis­ci­plines, improved IAMs can illu­mi­nate this poten­tial and sup­port its refine­ment. Ambi­tious poli­cies and aggres­sive mar­ket­place and soci­etal adop­tion of prof­itable new abate­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties need not wait for bet­ter mod­els, but bet­ter mod­els would help them to attract mer­ited atten­tion, scale faster, and turn numb­ing despair into col­lec­tively pow­er­ful applied hope.