There is no climate emergency. Climate change cannot be "turned around".

Reasons to act sooner rather than later include getting ahead of the curve with fossil fuel depletion. Secondly we should invest in carbon replacement technologies while we can still afford it. When petrol is over $3/L people are going to find it hard to get their old cars to minimum wage jobs. China and India are still building new coal fired power stations. In theory starting this week all Chinese imports into Europe should be slapped with carbon tariffs. In the period 2030-2040 my guess is that the fossil fuels coal, gas and oil will be too expensive regardless of climate effects.

Nonetheless as we see coal baseload helps stabilise the grid so the logical replacement is nuclear, something that the 100% renewables lobby fails to grasp. Nuclear, big batteries and subsidised EVs will cost trillions so the time to act is now not later.

Nuclear is all very good, but we are probably looking at the wrong technology. Companies such as Copenhagen Atomics with their fail safe Thorium powered molten salt reactor which is slated for live testing in about five year's time might well be the answer.

David

I agree with the statement, that climate change is undeniable! But not the rest of the argument that the transition away from fossil fuels is long and complex. That's a morally bankrupt, vested interest argument at best or a moronic assessment at worst. I believe it's the former.

We've listened to similar arguments on asbestos and tobacco. And by groups with a vested financial interest in the outcome and endless delay!

We can transition away from fossil fuels as soon as the political will allows. And the only real impediment!

We can transition to nuclear progressively using mass produced SMRs and placing them in current coal fired power sites so we can use current infrastructure. as a short-term fix.

Build time for operational mass produced SMRs? Less than a year! And as many as several dozen inside a decade! The only actual impediment!? Lack of can-do political will! AND THAT IS ALL!

After that we need to develop MSR thorium/nuclear waste burners and locate them as close to the customer as is safe to do so, e.g., within 200 hundred yards of a steel or aluminium or high temp titanium smelter or industrial complex eliminating as much as 70% off combined transmission and distribution losses.

And export raw electrical energy via undersea cables at prices that compete with coal and gas and result in a good profit year in and year out that more than replace what we got for rocks and hydrocarbon exports. We could become an energy exporting superpower! And inside a decade if we have the political will as opposed to the endless and pointless time wasting, eternal political dialogue!
Alan B.

Hi Taswegian
"When petrol is over $3/L people are going to find it hard to get their old cars to minimum wage jobs."
- That's exactly what Putin is counting on, western manufacturing and business going to the wall and people losing their homes.
Western governments ousted when they can't stop a rise in inflation.

"China and India are still building new coal fired power stations. In theory starting this week all Chinese imports into Europe should be slapped with carbon tariffs."
- They could do that - in theory, but China will place tariffs of it's own and Europe needs exports to China maybe more than China needs exports to Europe.
Europe would suffer significant economic pain when they're already in recession.

Western economies might soon be in such a situation that renewable policies are discarded completely.
Many have already moved in that direction.

Chinese imports into Europe should be slapped with carbon tariffs."
Armchair Critic,
That would cripple Europe just as it would cripple Australia as Europe has a very similar Demographic !