Much of the science proving climate change, the evidence demonstrating it and much of the technology to solve it have been available for years or decades. The missing piece is action. Much of this is down to the reluctance of individuals, companies or governments to suffer short term penalty by moving too early. The unfortunate paradox is that the primacy of individual choice and evaluation of benefits leads in the long term to collective failure and higher loss. Momentum is increasingly shifting however, so the risk is starting to become one of individual persons, companies or countries being too late to change, and suffering more as a consequence.
Given the various economic factors it is now beneficial for more people to move to low carbon energy (such as electric cars or green energy suppliers) or reduced consumption behaviour. For companies, the increase in consumer awareness and government legislative pressure is such that any business needs to start changing to a low carbon operating model and be on a pathway to net zero emissions by 2050. The effect and benefits of this change is further enhanced by seeking to influence faster change by the remainder. So non-green suppliers will fall out of favour, non-green employers will fail to attract the best talent and non-green governments will be turfed out of office.
The message is clear: change your own behaviour at home, change your behaviour at work and use your influence with your wallet, in person and by vote to drive change faster amongst others.