Efforts to limit an increase in average global temperature to 1.5°C have failed. Whether we passed that mark in 2024 or pass it this year isn’t as important as the fact that we’re going to sail past the target and keep going. A long way. Currently, our trajectory is 3.0°C above the preindustrial average by 2100 and higher beyond that.

The U.S. government’s 2021 National Intelligence Estimate of the consequences of these changes (which then predicted we would surpass 1.5°C of warming around 2030) is thought-provoking. It found that climate change will increasingly exacerbate risks to U.S. national security interests as the physical impacts increase and geopolitical tensions mount about how to respond to the challenge. Global momentum is growing for more ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reductions, but current policies and pledges are insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement goals. Countries are arguing about who should act sooner and competing to control the growing clean energy transition. Intensifying physical effects will exacerbate geopolitical flashpoints, particularly after 2030, and key countries and regions will face increasing risks of instability and need for humanitarian assistance.

Despite those and other dire forecasts, prioritizing high standards of living has overcome our concern about climate change. In other words, the economic, moral, and political drivers for increased access to energy have prevailed.

As we pass +1.5°C, it’s time for a new reckoning, one that enables us to determine a path forward that’s pragmatic and durable. This will require us to do the following:

1. Accept that we can’t solve climate change. It’s a condition that must be managed.
2. Prepare for a +3.0°C world. We might accelerate our mitigation efforts, but we must plan accordingly until those efforts are fruitful.
3. Accept that there will be an unlimited demand for energy. Higher standards of living, AI, and whatever comes after AI will always demand more.
4. Recognize that adaptation will play a significant role in the response to climate change. It’s not admitting defeat. It’s adding stability to an unstable condition.
5. Stop blaming corporations. Corporations are the way market economies produce goods and services people demand. If we change what we want, companies will change.
6. Worry about how market democracies will fare in the face of climate change and competition from planned economies. In particular, according to a study by the Boston Consulting Group, China has developed a substantial lead over the United States in a number of green technologies and could use this to its geopolitical advantage.

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