What is undermining climate change mitigation? How fossil-fuelled practices challenge low-carbon transitions

Why are fossil fuels stuck at 80 % of global energy despite impressive rollouts of wind and solar energy and increased efficiencies? This investigation documents that the reason is the accelerating treadmill of energy demand based on fossil-fuelled practices whose enormous scale nullifies advances in efficiency and clean energy, making mitigation of climate change exceedingly difficult. Humans are running faster innovating efficiency and green energy just to stay in the same place of emissions. The article investigates the under-researched deep causes of human-caused climate change, namely the increasing demand for discretionary, energy-intensive practices resulting from affluence. Proportionality of…