Why are you saying this. We just need to get to netzero. This is going to cost some money but it won't break the bank. Estimates go up to 2x global GDP.
If we magically went netzero tomorrow, the greenhouse effect from the already accumulated emissions would still cause a significant climate change in the upcoming decades.
And, of course, we won't go netzero tomorrow, there's no "just" in it due to the time and effort it would take to scale up the solutions even if the money was there, but of course the money isn't there; while technically the world could afford it if it wanted, there are absolutely no indications that those who can afford it would be willing to do fund the bill, quite the opposite.
You are making it out to be an insurmountable challenge and reject what we are have already achieved. Cost-parity renewables being the most impressive feat. Global treaties such as Paris are a second.
I'm saying that if you look at, for example, the IPCC reports, then out of the various scenarios considered, the very most optimistic ones, the most ambitious goal they consider worth discussing, amounts to stabilizing global warming at 1.5 degrees and that requires achieving net zero by 2050.
I'm not rejecting what we have achieved, I'm just discouraging wishful thinking that we can somehow avoid having to adapt to the effects of the climate change - our actions can change whether we'll have a small global warming or a large global warming, but there is no scenario where we will have zero global warming, as it's already happening. And it's not just my opinion, this is a high-confidence consensus of IPCC.
China already abandoned the Paris Agreement and it's foolish to think that developing nations will prioritize long-range climate change over their own economic growth & security. This is a major issue with climate change - the entire Western world could go net-zero tomorrow and we would still end up at > +2C change from everyone else.
Even if we had net zero emissions of GHG today, which we can't, we would also need to remove much of what we already emitted. Otherwise effects of GHG concentrations will still warm the planet for centuries, maybe even thousands- to millions of years with feedback loop effects.
Going zero emission today would mean most people would starve and not have proper transportation. But without a job, they maybe wouldn't have need for that..
