Re: Fusion quite possibly will never work but there are alternatives
The alternative to decarbonisation, in the absence of a massive expansion of nuclear, or a fusion miracle, is to carry on burning whatever we can find. Whatever your stance on climate change, burning everything economically is an eventual cycle to destruction of the species.
Partly true. Ever increasing energy costs and burning food will eventually destroy much of our species. Or just greatly reduce the standand of living.
But that's a small price to pay to appease the eco-facists.
Rest involves some science. So there's a theory that CO2=Warming. Even when there are record low temperatures set. Ok, so this is trivially true. CO2 as 4 emission/absorption points in it's spectrum, which is old news. 3 overlap with H2O, and H2O dominates in our atmosphere. Handy visual here-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_window#/media/File:Atmospheric_Transmission.svg
So more CO2, more absorption. So basically CO2 molecule absorbs a passing photon, reaches a higher energy state, then generally spits the photon back out again in a random direction. Some climate 'scientists' assume that means most of the energy is re-radiated back to the surface, thus trapping energy, thus heat. But that isn't really physics. The higher up the CO2 molecule, the more likely the emitted photon misses the ground.
Then-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity#Equilibrium_climate_sensitivity
The CO2 level in 2016 was 403 ppm, which is less than 50% higher than the pre-industrial CO2 concentration of 278 ppm. However, because increased concentrations have a progressively-smaller warming effect, the Earth was already more than halfway to doubling of radiative forcing caused by CO2
Sure, it's wiki, but wiki has the world's best and brightest climate 'scientists' ensuring it's accuracy and impartiality. So then-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity#Equilibrium_climate_sensitivity
The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) stated that there is high confidence that ECS is within the range of 2.5°C to 4°C, with a best estimate of 3°C
So assuming Year 0 was say, 1850, and CO2 levels were 275ppmv so the first 'doubling' would be 275-550ppmv, which should result in around 3°C warming. We can only observe less than half that amount. So that strongly suggests that ECS assumptions are too high, or there are negative feedbacks reducing warming.
So since 1850, we've burned gigatonnes of carbon, and boosted CO2 levels to around 420ppmv. To hit the next doubling, we'd need to 550-1100ppmv. Slight snag is based on overall CO2 increase and fossil fuel usage, we'd have to pretty much de-carbonise the entire planet to produce enough CO2.
Basically you can't get there from here, we don't have enough CO2 to create Thermageddon, there is no climate 'emergency'. Especially if ECS is really closer to 1.2-1.5°C. Especially as the science says the CO2/temperature response is logarithmic, ie "because increased concentrations have a progressively-smaller warming effect. So basically we've already seen and 'locked in' pretty much all the warming for the post-industrial doubling.
But that's where mainstream climate 'science' demands a few leaps of faith. Like a mechanism that really supports that view, or can explain why we've only seen <1.5°C warming in the post-industrial era. So according to the 'science', that damage is done, the next crisis will be when we get to the next doubling, and the amplification effect of going from say, 550ppmv-750ppmv. Which is a very long way off.
But there's also no real physical basis for that view. A more amusing thing to thing about is if the logarithmic assumption is correct, and it's a nice, constant 3°C per doubling, we should be able to work that backwards. So from 1ppmv to 2ppmv= 3°C, so the less CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the greater the warming effect.
So basically that viewpoint is essentially homeopathy. Trace amounts of CO2 have a larger global warming effect because CO2 molecules retain memories of heat. But that's mostly back to goal seeking and some base-line assumptions. Like the Earth's climate has been in 'equilibrium' pre-industry. There's a huge amount of evidence that shows this is untrue, and the Earth's been oscillating around a mean for a few million years. The other huge assumption is starting a gish-gallop of junk science by stating that the Earth's a 'black body', therefore it's baseline temperature should be X.
Of course the Earth isn't, and never has been a black body.