Why We Won't 'fix' Climate Change (a tragedy of the commons) -5.1% in 25 Years
We are so unlikely to fix this issue because of two features of human behaviour and the way they have shaped our current societies.... Here's where we are:
We're making progress, particularly in generating electrical energy from renewables and nuclear. However, it's worth keeping an eye on the larger picture, because electricity generation is a small proportion of overall global energy use. We need vast quantities of energy to manufacture our infrastructure, particularly concrete and steel; to heat our homes and to manufacture fertiliser to help feed ourselves.
The image below (from Our World in Data) shows how global energy sources changed over 25 years from 1999 to 2024. The good news is that renewable energy has more than doubled. Unfortunately, our global energy demand continues to rise, so the percentage of energy supplied by fossil fuels in 1999 was 87.5% and in 2024, it had only fallen by a little over 5% to 82.4%.
We are improving our efforts, and if this continues, we should have this down to about 70% fossil fuel use by 2050, with absolute use (the number that determines how much greenhouse gas we generate) rising by about 50%.
In this performance of the tragedy of the commons, it is our nation-states that are the custodians of the resource, our planet. We compete and collaborate, but the incentive for the citizens of one country to take the necessary steps to address this issue is insufficient for most. To act is to subject oneself to (at least) a short-term lowering of our living standards compared to other nations. The UK has led the way in many respects, perhaps driven by guilt at instigating the Industrial Revolution, but we have been bold in setting out energy reduction targets. These targets, the best in the world, are insufficient. They allow us to export our energy use to other nations, where they make the steel, glass, concrete and fertilisers that we keep 'off our books'. It would require the whole world to step up to this target, but we will continue to hold climate COPs and will rearrange our deckchairs while we steam towards disaster.
'The future' compounds this present-day dilemma. We humans typically discount the future. We have a present bias, possibly as an evolutionary advantage, to secure our immediate needs. Just look at the graph above and then consider all the talk about progress. Everyone knows the ambition for limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels has been missed. Some people talk about it being possible if we drastically cut our emissions now. Meanwhile, back in the real world, we will be lucky to stay under 2.5 degrees. If we carry on as we are, you can see where this takes us:
The only (controlled) way to 'fix' this is for citizens around the world to signal to their governments that they want them to act more decisively. Pockets of reasoned response have emerged, but today, no such global movement exists, and it's hard to imagine that one will emerge until it is too late and we have squandered our grandchildren's inheritance. Anyone who thinks messages like 'Just Stop Oil' will work knows nothing about human nature. Nancy Regan once exhorted us to 'Just Say No' to drugs; how's that going!