UKH

Has Covid shown us how difficult climate change will be in terms of following the guidelines etc ...

The science has identified how society needs to react, but although many have complied, a lot probably haven't, will this be the same for climate change ?

We have a time line for 2100 to bring temperature rise to below 1.5° C, but this needs compliance to work and Covid has shown this doesn't come so easy.

L

What it demonstrates is that controlling things by opening/closing types of business is much easier than by getting people to behave.  That is, if you tell people not to go to the pub they will do anyway, but if you close the pub they can't.

So by comparison, for example, people will not choose not to use their car unless it's made difficult to do so, nor will they give up their gas boilers for an inferior system unless they have to.  Or you avoid the issue by "greening" the electricity supply, including substantial nuclear, and the problem goes away.

(To me, alternative electricity generation is the "vaccine" - if you can generate as much electricity as possible via non-carbon-emitting means, which does involve nuclear but also renewables, you don't have to "self-flagellate" to the same extent - but for some reason some people like to do this, most notably the Green Party).

I think the more apt comparison would be with past environmental efforts, perhaps most obviously the phasing out of CFCs and protection of the ozone layer. We have been pretty successful there (though obviously global warming will be harder).

Also, what you see with COVID compliance is really only the stick, not the carrot. Nobody is going to pay you £100 to not go out to the pub (or if they are, you get it regardless of whether you obey the rules). Environmentally friendly measures by comparison have a healthy level of carrot. Even a first year psych undergrad will tell you that reward is always a better motivator than punishment.

I disagree here. Getting rid of CFCs was a pretty low-hanging fruit - society was not dependent on them in anything like the same way we are fossil fuels. Moreover, the ozone hole was a big, obvious thing happening now - whereas global heating is far more subtle and very difficult to reliably tie individual events to. 

Do they have a good level of carrot? Fossil fuel for cars is cheaper than electricity once ownership is accounted for, and my zero-emission energy supplier is more expensive than the equivalent pollution one. Throwaway culture is incentivised widely (indirectly or otherwise), as is poor land management. If I want to buy a coal-fired stove for my house, it's cheaper than putting solar thermal in. 

The difference is the degree to which the solutions are voluntary or enforced. Many of the Covid solutions have relied on compliance with voluntary measures, with regulatory enforcement at a minimum.

Climate change will not be tackled through individual voluntary measures. It will only successfully be tackled when high-carbon options are removed by regulation. In this regard, the moves to ban the sale of new ICE cars from 2030 and gas-fired heating systems in new housing are moves in the right direction. There is much more than can and should be done - new building developments must have much higher standards of insulation, must use PVs to generate their own electricity, must have car charging points - but the major GHG emitters will remain transport and industry. Until we find ways of manufacturing and transporting all the things we need for 21st century life, we will remain on the wrong road. 

I think you are totally right.  People generally take the easiest way even if its against their stated beliefs and principles.

That is why system change is always more effective than individual actions. I had to fly to holland quite a few times with work, I could have given up the job, but then my seat on the plane would just be taken by a boozed up stag do member, I did push for more work from home (something that would be easier now). under a gradual systematic change my behaviours would have been forced to change ie. looked at trains, change in work patterns my company would have been forced to adapt as well, this is much easier when everybody is doing it ie.system change. As someone has pointed out closing the pubs/restricting hours is much more effective than asking individuals to stay out of the pub.

What punishment? A fair proportion of the population won't live long enough to see the climate change problems in 2050 and certainly not 2100. Another proportion are wealthy enough not to care.