this is what I believe is going to happen: survival of the richest.
Sure, we are pushing for renewable energies and some countries are even pushing for net zero emissions, but stats don't lie and we are still warming the world much faster than before ww2 (see picture) and most politicians seem to enjoy burying their heads in the sand, because its what their voters want. Where I live politicians talk about carbon sequestering and hydrogen cars, for example, but its always for an interview, with no follow up whatsoever.
picture:
I'm not claiming authoritarian countries are better just for being authoritarian, they also need growth not to risk social unrest and their elites also want to get rich.
Oil dependency seems not to be anywhere near of being reduced and in some countries like the US and I'm assuming the oil producing countries there is simply no political will, because their budget depends on it. For maga gas means identity.
Some countries are heading in the right direction, more EVs are being produced and pushing for net zero, but it's a very slow transition that won't save the planet and I'm not even sure these countries represent most of the human population.
We are simply too many and too greedy: everyone wants to consume.
It is completely unrealistic to expect humans not to be greedy, or to subscribe to left leaning philosophies of human love, human rights, the right to a home or distribution of wealth. In the end we all are monkeys, more now than ever, given how the far right has become so mainstream. It is simply what people want.
So the rich ones, the one who can afford air conditioning, not to rent, an electric vehicle and to relocate to areas where global warming is mitigated will do that, whereas most of the rest will have to bear the brunt of falling social services, even hotter heatwaves, poorer air and drier parks, and surviving instead of living.
If you feel I'm wrong, kindly prove it to me.
It's not as simple as just wiping out the global south and working class—the global north ruling class is only able to better survive climate change because of the labour of the global south and the working class. When climate change leads to a collapse in population and labour in the global south, it will seriously impact the people living in their air conditioned bunkers. The nature of being a parasite means you need a host to leech off of, and that's us. They can't live without us.
And I don't believe climate change is going to literally eliminate every single person among these demographics. Some people in soon-to-be-uninhabitable countries will be able to leave and seek climate asylum elsewhere. There's also permanent human life in every continent except Antarctica; there will still be some small communities clinging on in parts of the world largely departed, because humans can adapt to such a wide range of climates. There's going to be a huge societal collapse and restructuring of society, but not extinction.
"Human nature" is not transhistorical or actual nature. Our material interests change based on the mode of production we live in. We live according to the logic of capitalism because we live within capitalism. Climate change will lead to at least a fundamental change in capitalism, if not its collapse, which will also change humans themselves and our behaviours. Capitalism atomises us so that the economic subject is the individual, but in another mode of production such as communism, the economic base of society would be different such that the economic subject is not the individual. Humans aren't inherently greedy, nor are they inherently altruistic.