y now, the thermometer tells the story better than restatement of goals. Last year ended 1.55 °C above the pre–industrial baseline, the hottest year since humans began recording. Atmospheric CO₂ reached 424 ppm, a level not seen for three million years. These are not scenarios; they are the conditions under which civilization now operates.
Yet the world’s energy habits barely moved. We consumed 620 exajoules of primary energy last year, still 78% fossil, while adding 700 gigawatts of renewables—the largest expansion in history. Global CO₂ emissions nevertheless climbed to 37.8 gigatons, according to IEA estimates. Progress and inertia now coexist in the same dataset.
Across history, societies have expanded until measurement caught up with consequence. Fossil fuels aren’t the enemy; unmeasured waste is. We can’t manage what we don’t quantify. Rome exhausted its forests; Britain its coal seams; we emit carbon we barely count. Civilization advances when it learns to audit itself.
The contrarian view is simple: you cannot decarbonize by decree. Energy demand will not bow to virtue. The real contest is between precision and waste—between verified performance and unverified aspiration. If we accept that fossil energy will persist for decades, the adult question is how efficiently, transparently, and cleanly it can be managed while renewables scale. Pretending otherwise is indulgence.
Adaptation costs are the modern ledgers of delay: $320 – $370 billion in annual climate losses, desalination plants rising along Mediterranean shores, flood defenses in New York, fire corridors across Greece. These are the fortifications of a hotter planet.
COP30 should mark the shift from narrative to numeracy. A global standard for verified carbon intensity per unit of production would let investors price progress and regulators measure truth. When carbon becomes an auditable entry on the balance sheet, markets will do what decrees cannot—redirect capital toward proof and away from waste.
The thermometer has become the historian’s pen. The question for this decade is whether we can learn to measure, write, and manage in units the planet still respects.
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The arithmetic of a warming world
Image via Adobe Stock.
November 10, 2025
As we consider climate and energy futures, we must accept the world cannot decarbonize by force. With fossil fuels set to persist for decades, the real contest is between precision and waste—with verifiable, standardized measures—until renewables can scale, writes Duane Dickson.
B
y now, the thermometer tells the story better than restatement of goals. Last year ended 1.55 °C above the pre–industrial baseline, the hottest year since humans began recording. Atmospheric CO₂ reached 424 ppm, a level not seen for three million years. These are not scenarios; they are the conditions under which civilization now operates.
Yet the world’s energy habits barely moved. We consumed 620 exajoules of primary energy last year, still 78% fossil, while adding 700 gigawatts of renewables—the largest expansion in history. Global CO₂ emissions nevertheless climbed to 37.8 gigatons, according to IEA estimates. Progress and inertia now coexist in the same dataset.
Across history, societies have expanded until measurement caught up with consequence. Fossil fuels aren’t the enemy; unmeasured waste is. We can’t manage what we don’t quantify. Rome exhausted its forests; Britain its coal seams; we emit carbon we barely count. Civilization advances when it learns to audit itself.
The contrarian view is simple: you cannot decarbonize by decree. Energy demand will not bow to virtue. The real contest is between precision and waste—between verified performance and unverified aspiration. If we accept that fossil energy will persist for decades, the adult question is how efficiently, transparently, and cleanly it can be managed while renewables scale. Pretending otherwise is indulgence.
Adaptation costs are the modern ledgers of delay: $320 – $370 billion in annual climate losses, desalination plants rising along Mediterranean shores, flood defenses in New York, fire corridors across Greece. These are the fortifications of a hotter planet.
COP30 should mark the shift from narrative to numeracy. A global standard for verified carbon intensity per unit of production would let investors price progress and regulators measure truth. When carbon becomes an auditable entry on the balance sheet, markets will do what decrees cannot—redirect capital toward proof and away from waste.
The thermometer has become the historian’s pen. The question for this decade is whether we can learn to measure, write, and manage in units the planet still respects.
