Climate Change: The Final Call?

Air quality has improved dramatically in rich countries over the past century. Yet air pollution is still a huge problem, especially in the developing world. It kills about 7 million people each year, accounting for one out of every eight deaths globally. But the most deadly air pollution comes from inside people's houses, because 2.8 billion people still use firewood, dung and coal for cooking and keeping warm, breathing polluted air inside their homes every day.

Three years have passed since world leaders adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with 169 targets that must be reached to transform the planet. We are one-fifth of our way towards 2030, but miles behind on achieving the lofty goals to reduce poverty, increase prosperity, protect the planet and advance peace.

With leaders gathering in Paris later this month for a major climate summit, it is clear that our modern-day approach to climate change is backwards. We spend a massive amount of effort trying to make carbon too expensive and unappealing for the world to use. Instead, we need to make green energy much cheaper.

Our dependency on carbon-emitting fuels is overwhelming. The fact is that the world will not stop using fossil fuels for many decades. Despite all the excitement about green energy, globally we get a minuscule 0.4 percent of our energy from wind and solar panels.