‘Overshoot’ occurs when humanity consumes bio-resources faster than ecosystems can regenerate and waste production exceeds nature’s assimilative capacity. Overshoot is a meta-problem: climate change; plunging biodiversity; pollution of land, air and waters; tropical deforestation; soil/land degradation etc., etc., are all co-symptoms of overshoot. Climate change is an excess waste problem — CO2 is the greatest waste by weight of modern techno-industrial economies. We cannot solve any major symptom of overshoot in isolation. Indeed, the mainstream approach to emissions reductions will not only fail to subdue climate change but, by promoting material growth, will exacerbate overshoot (https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-10-29/cop-26-stoppin...).
Almost everything we undertake follows a pattern resembling a hockey stick (https://futureearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/great_acc...), growing exponentially long after we've already surpassed safe boundaries. This has been happening for several decades now, at least since 1970. The carrying capacity of our environment has been deteriorating for decades, and recently, the rate of its decline has escalated. It is on the verge of entering free fall, if it hasn't already (nicely explained here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPb_0JZ6-Rc ).
We should have stopped using fossil fuels yesterday and started changing our diets, reforming agriculture, reforesting, restoring habitats and biodiversity, reforming financial systems, promoting degrowth and implementing UBI to address inequality, etc., etc. Many things need to be done urgently to halt the environmental crisis. Unfortunately, we are not even making significant progress on the changes we have announced.
We are acting too late, our efforts are insufficient. Nobody's truly in charge. COP is a farce, the IPCC has been bought by interest groups. Politicians are not taking decisive action, economic growth remains an obsession.
We are driving towards the cliff at full speed, with nobody at the brakes.
Isn't reducing CO2 emissions as fast as possible the only issue in town when it comes to the climate crisis?