“Energy transition” has been profoundly misunderstood

Those attending COP29, the UN climate conference in Azerbaijan, from November 11th-22nd, can expect to get heartily sick of hearing the phrase “energy transition”. In a way, its ubiquity is welcome. There was a time in the 1980s and 1990s when governments that thought about climate change at all felt there would be nothing they could do but adapt to its ill-effects. The belief that an energy transition can instead help bring the process to a halt has marked an important move away from such fatalism.