Since covid I’ve actually become less convinced of this. Yes there were national interests at play and there was a lot of general chaos.

But. The level of international coordination with vaccine rollouts and agreements between countries was way more than I had initially expected. Of course this feeling depends on what your own baseline expectations are.

My takeaway was that if the conditions arise that we all decide to do something about climate change (because of political conditions or because of actual effects) we (humanity) are willing to make big sudden changes

I agree, the world is able to deal with some things. Another good example is perhaps the ozone layer.

Global warming is much trickier though. Covid had hundreds dying daily, it was very direct and undeniable, and the cure was cheap and efficient once it was developed.

Global warming has no clear signal (oh look, another heatwave) and no clear cure at all, let alone a cheap and efficient one.

Millions of people died when a possible solution of "hey, everyone, let's stay inside for a couple weeks" could've possibly effectively eradicated the virus does not seem like a great example of humanity's ability to cope with imminent global existential threats. The potential solution(s) to the massive brick wall we're speeding towards are far more inconvenient than "everyone just hang out for a minute." It's radical change to everything in society.

The comparison with Covid is also striking because the only reason a global "don't travel too much" solution couldn't work is due to the nature of capitalism. It's not like we couldn't feed everyone. It's just that some people with too much wouldn't gain as much for a little bit. Which is the same root cause of why solving climate change is impossible without radical change.

Unfortunately, I don't know the answer. I'm quite certain it's not to maintain the status quo, though.