Modern society uses a lot of unnecessary energy in part because someone gets to make a lot of money now and leave this life before the consequences of unfettered destruction come due.
I say, we should have as much power as possible, generated as cleanly as possible, and the lowest possible cost. This is how we move society forwards.
Energy is the lifeblood of civilization. Reducing the cost of energy, and widespread availability of energy is responsible for saving perhaps a billion lives and bettering nearly 10 billion lives over the last century (that is to say, basically all of them).
The idea of putting a stranglehold on worldwide energy production or access is abhorrent when you look at the on-the-ground effects that such a policy would actually have on people’s lives. As you rightly point out, the most marginalized people worst of all.
Even if we could somehow stop industry from emitting even a gram of CO2 on 1/1/2021 going forward, the climate models still predict their 10 meter sea level rise just given the current greenhouse levels persisting.
The only answer is technological, and in my opinion it’s frankly not even going to be that complicated of a problem given the resources and technology available circa 2050 to deal with it.
Franky, solar shades seemed a lot harder of an ask pre-Starship. Looking forward to seeing SN8 reach for 60km in the near future.