What does "in absolute stakes" mean in this context? But climate change is an increasingly dangerous context for all their worlds. To understand that context, it is important to understand all the things that climate change is not. It is not the end of the world. Earth is a tough old thing and will survive. Climate change is, though, a dire threat to countless people - one that is planetary in scope *if not in its absolute stakes*." It will displace tens of millions, at the very least; it will disrupt farms on which billions rely; it will dry up wells and water mains. ... The longer humanity takes to curb emissions, the greater the dangers and the sparser the benefits. - So I guess "planetary in scope" here means the effect of climate change is so big that it's almost affecting the entire planet (am i right?) but what does "in its absolute stakes" mean here? Does "it" indicate climate change? I'm not sure about the exact meaning of "absolute" and "stakes" here thus having difficulty understanding the whole sentence.