The Climate Change Challenge: A Review of the Barriers and Solutions to Deliver a Paris Solution

Abstract

Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have continued to grow persistently since 1750. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) entered into force in 1994 to stabilize GHG emissions. Since then, the increasingly harmful impacts of global climate change and repeated scientific warnings about future risks have not been enough to change the emissions trend and enforce policy actions. This paper synthesizes the climate change challenges and the insofar insufficient mitigation responses via an integrated literature review. The fossil industry, mainstream economic thinking, national rather than international interests, and political strive for short-term interests present key barriers to climate mitigation. A continuation of such trends is reflected in the Dice model, leading to a 3.5 °C temperature increase by 2100. Despite receiving the Nobel Prize for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis via the Dice model, increases in global mean temperatures overshooting the 1.5 °C to 2 °C Paris targets imply an intensified disruption in the human–climate system. Past and present policy delays and climate disruption pave the way for solar radiation management (SRM) geoengineering solutions with largely unknown and potentially dangerous side effects. This paper argues against SRM geoengineering and evaluates critical mitigation solutions leading to a decrease in global temperatures without overshooting the Paris targets. The essential drivers and barriers are discussed through a unified approach to tipping points in the human–climate system. The scientific literature presents many economically and technologically viable solutions and the policy and measures required to implement them. The present paper identifies the main barriers to integrating them in a globally cooperative way, presenting an efficient, long-term, and ethical policy approach to climate change.