[thestu]

I think the most likely future is one where we do mostly nothing for a long time, until things get quite bad, and then one nation or a small group of nations does some kind of solar geoengineering to very quickly lower the temperature of the Earth. Mostly this takes the form of pumping aerosols in to the atmosphere to block out some percentage of sunlight. As far as I understand it we already have the technology to pull this off, and it's not so expensive (tens of billions per year) that a single very rich nation couldn't bear the cost themselves.

At the very least, I can't imagine a nation like China or India or the US staring down a relatively imminent existential climate change threat and not at least trying geoengineering. At that point what do you have to lose?

[anonydsfsfs]

Agreed. When things get bad, there's going to huge pressure on politicians to do something, and at that point there's probably not going to be any good answers. Geoengineering is risky, especially if it's rushed, but it's within the means of many of the countries that will be worst affected by climate change. Even if it has a very low chance of working and a high chance of worsening the situation for everyone, I'm sure at least one political leader is going to pull the trigger when they've got an angry mob beating down their door demanding action.