Crisis looms for the planet. In November 2022, world leaders met in Egypt at the UN’s annual forum on climate change, known as the Conference of the Parties. Much like the previous 26 rounds of negotiations, COP27 did little to solve the world’s environmental emergency. The summit marked another failure to secure meaningful commitments. It is now virtually certain that countries will fail to reach the long-standing goal of limiting average planetary warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. A UN Environment Program report from October 2022 projected that current climate pledges will result in planetary warming of approximately 2.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the twenty-first century. The damage done by the past inaction of governments is increasingly palpable and irreversible, but that is no reason to give up.
Humanity must change its habits of consumption to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Replacing carbon-intensive goods and services with green counterparts (that is, products made with dramatically reduced or no carbon emissions) will help curb overall global emissions. Indeed, some of the world’s leading climate voices are more openly acknowledging the necessity of such a transition. Last year, in an unusual move, the annual climate-assessment report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change included chapters on efforts to create new environmental goods and services. And promising discoveries have sparked hope for future progress. In December 2022, U.S. scientists announced the breakthrough, after decades of trying, of the first-ever controlled nuclear fusion reaction. Nuclear fusion technology, however, will not be commercially viable anytime soon.
