Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven't We Bent the Emissions Curve?

Answer is pretty simple. The incentives aren't there. Those with power and money will be dead before it matters and most of them aren't the type to care what sort of world their childrens children inherit.

I wish there was a better answer, like "we just need X technological breakthough" but the reality is we have had the tech all along. Nuclear has been here for decades but we just sat on it, didn't bother improving it, allowed crappy politics to keep it down so that other nations couldn't gain nuclear capabilities.

Electric rail could have easily taking 95% of trucks off the road if large nations properly invested in it, could also take a large number of planes out of the sky if you had high speed passenger rail to go with it.

We didn't need to continue destroying the Earth. We had the tech, we knew what to do, as a collective we shrugged our shoulders and said "who gives a fuck, I'll be dead anyway'.

It's actually quite amazing that emissons have risen 60% since the first IPCC report. Climate change, like no other topic, has me chaning my outlook from somewhat optimistic to erally pessimistic every other week, depending on what I read.