We’ve got our climate change priorities backwards

Quoth Borges, there’s no pity in fate — and physics isn’t kinder.

• The atmosphere reacts to actual CO2 emissions, not emissions compared with an alternative path. This means we have to do a very fast complete stop of emissions: carbon taxes are insufficient, carbon credits are greenwashing, new fossil fuel energy generators make the problem worse, “clean coal” or “less-pollution fossil fuels” are nonsense. The good news is that with massive investment in renewable energy generation and energy transmission (the grid and hydrogen — hydrogen isn’t an energy source) and political will we can do this with nice side effects in terms of jobs and general quality of life, but renewable technology you don’t replace fossil fuels with doesn’t help.
• It also means the Russian economy as it currently stands isn’t viable, the Gulf economy as it currently stands isn’t viable, Vaca Muerta is a no-go, etc.
• Energy efficiency makes the solution easier but it’s not a solution. If your electricity comes from a fossil fuel plant then your LED is still wrecking climate, and your electric car or scooter is still wrecking climate. Replacing all fossil fuel-powered vehicles is necessary, but if you don’t replace energy generators, you’ll just build more fossil fuel energy generators to power all those electric vehicles.
• Bikes are nice but if you don’t replace energy generators the infrastructure of your city and your job are still wrecking the climate.
• There are activities that are impossibly to make carbon-neutral (e.g. sea shipping and making concrete), so we need some carbon capture. But carbon capture consumes energy, so it’s not a solution to the general problem: if you try to offset your fossil fuel plants’ carbon by capturing it, you’ll have to build more fossil fuel plants to power your fossil fuel capture.
• In short: electric cars without massive political activism and investment to rebuild the entire energy generation and transfer infrastructure won’t stop climate change, energy-efficient products without massive political activism and investment to rebuild the entire energy generation and transfer infrastructure won’t stop climate change, carbon capture without massive political activism and investment to rebuild the entire energy generation and transfer infrastructure won’t stop climate change, and “cleaner fossil fuels” are geophysical nonsense.
• What actions to give priority to is left as an exercise to the reader.