That can and must happen in parallel with replacement of coal with cleaner sources of energy, even if they involve emissions.
Full decarbonization can't in any sense be considered an intermediate solution, because there's not even a small working example of it anywhere in the world or any plausible proposal to get from here to there on the timescale we need to avoid disaster.
And even if it was, best case scenario it will take a couple of decades to switch away from fossil fuels.
> there's not even a small working example of it anywhere in the world or any plausible proposal to get from here to there on the timescale we need to avoid disaster
Yes but we are in uncharted territory. We don't know how to do it but humanity has to find a way and fracking is certainly not part of where we need to go.
The sensible decision would have been to invest in renewables instead of fracking. Fracking has been a total waste of money even ignoring all the environmental problems it is causing.
James Hansen talked to congress about climate change in the 80s, it's not like this is a new issue.
We have run out of time for intermediate solutions. A reduction of 2% (globally!) would have maybe been sufficient pre-2000. Today we need a reduction of 15% PER YEAR if we have any hope of keeping temperature increase within 1.5 degrees Celsius -- which is already a Very Bad Thing to happen as is.
We need extreme radical measures now. This tiny effect that happens to have occurred despite not changing anything about the fundamental logic of our economy and our relationship to energy is nothing to pat ourselves on the back about.
