Abstract:  There is widespread belief that climate change poses an “existential threat” and drastic and rapid cuts in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and hence fossil fuel use are needed to cope with it. However, empirical evidence shows that humanity has coped well with the past rise in temperature caused substantially by human activities. Moreover, fossil fuels supply 85% of global energy needs and replacing just 60% of these with carbon-free energy will require the world to build new capacity of around 9.4 TW CO2-free continuous power. Simultaneously, the existing energy infrastructure has to be dismantled e.g. oil, gas, coal, aviation, steel and cement industries have to be largely shut down. Such change is unlikely to happen, particularly as poorer countries try to grow their economies and continue to use fossil fuels so that global GHG levels are not likely to come down. It is perhaps better to recognise this reality and make societies more resilient to the effects of climate change. The paper will focus on transport, particularly, battery electric vehicles to illustrate some of the challenges. The focus is also on the policies in the U.K. but the general points are applicable to most other countries. 

Key words: climate change, energy transition, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, decarbonisation, new energy, transport energy