It tells us that everything we’ve done so far is an ineffective approach, and therefore not really a big deal and to do anything useful we need a radical rethink. I think I envy your faith that scaling up our best approaches yet can resolve our predicament, though I’m not quite sure.
From the linked study:
between 1998 and 2022 across 41 countries from six continents […] total emission reductions between 0.6 billion and 1.8 billion metric tonnes CO2.
Oof, it very much reads like that’s total over 24 years, rather than per year. Global emissions being over 37 billion tonnes last year and rising, if my quick googling is to be believed.
a small fraction had a big impact
I wonder what glowing words would be left to describe a hypothetical situation where we were actually making things better, rather than just making them worse fractionally more slowly.
We’re not in the Anthropocene because the next epoch hasn’t taken shape yet. What humanity has done is create a transition from the holocene to whatever epoch will come next, the nature of which is unknown though we can predict some aspects. The idea that this right now is the new geological epoch is absurd hubristic misunderstanding of what a geological epoch is.
It’s not an epoch any more than the crash that totaled your car is your new car.
Oh now, let’s not imagine the majority would say no thanks to profligate consumption if they had the means.
The problem is the system (or lack thereof) that allows it to happen, not so much which individuals win the absurd game.
And the threshold of consumption where you’re pay of the problem is a lot lower than most people want to face.
when we can power the whole grid on renewables
Hooo boy, theres a massive leap behind that statement. Don’t forget the production and decommissioning of that infrastructure, and the vehicles.
Electric cars are slightly less bad that ICEs. They’re still utterly unsustainable and part of the problem, not the solution.
Not to mention an emissions decline means we’re still making things worse, but not quite so quickly.
Obviously the path to making things better would have to pass through here, but just as people thinking electric cars are a solution rather than more of the problem, the delusion that this is winning is also part of the problem.