ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a critical assessment of three approaches to addressing climate change: geoengineering, carbon capture and storage, and reforestation. The chapter then reviews alternative economic models (including the circular economy, steady-state economics, and degrowth) and proposals for reengineering global financial systems. It concludes with a brief summary of major governmental initiatives in China and Western industrialized countries. Two appendices are included, the first summarizing major European Commission climate proposals of July 14, 2021 and second the results of the COP26 conference in November 2021. The conclusion of this volume, Unsustainable World: Are We Losing the Battle to Save Our Planet, is particularly sobering. Earth appears headed towards significantly higher temperatures with all their potentially devastating consequences. No single technological solution has been demonstrated as of yet that can reverse or significantly slow this progression in the immediate future. Nothing less than an extraordinary coordinated effort by civil society, business, and government can stem this tide. This will require us to overcome the economic, political, and social inertia characterizing our modern society and achieve a profound change in patterns of both production and consumption at the global level. This, in turn, will necessitate an integrated array of creative economic instruments, regulations, and off-the-shelf technologies and the pursuit of new technologies contingent upon the application of the precautionary principle with the ultimate aim of decarbonization of our economic systems. If we fail at this unprecedented and daunting undertaking, humanity faces a bleak future.
