World fossil fuel energy use growing: study

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from 1997, he said.

Wigley said it is time to take serious action, with research investment and the development of climate policies—from improving mileage standards for cars to a tax on carbon or a cap and trade programme.

The new Nature article makes a “solid but simple point” about not taking future technological progress for granted, said Jae Edmonds, an economist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland College Park.

“Somebody’s going to actually have to do something right to make it happen,” Edmonds said.

Edmonds said the new study shouldn’t make people feel paralysed about the difficulty of tackling the global climate change problem.

“It is sobering, but problems like this that are big get tackled by not doing them all at once,” Edmonds said.

“It’s like that old Chinese proverb—the journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step,” he said. “The most important thing to do is to get started.”