Why global warming is such a hard problem to solve

It basically boils down to three reasons - -

• Time is not our friend - - Because the natural processes that clean the atmosphere only work at a trickle, stopping global warming will require very deep cuts in emissions.  If we could hold emissions constant starting on Monday (carbon dioxide emissions have risen 3% annually on average), carbon dioxide emissions would continue to build.  Keep in mind that actually stopping and eventually reversing the build-up of carbon dioxide and other long-lived gases would require reductions of about 50% below current levels by 2050 and even deeper cuts in the decades beyond.  Cuts like this are just not in the cards - - 85% of carbon dioxide emissions come from burring coal, oil, and natural gas.  Very deep cuts in emissions imply the need for totally new methods of burning that sequester the carbon dioxide safely away from the atmosphere or for an economy that makes only sparing use of fossil fuels.  This would require new technology and energy infrastructure that will be very slow to evolve.
• The disconnect between costs and benefits  - The cost of efforts to control the pollutants is immediate, but the benefits are uncertain and mainly accrue in the distant future (looping back to "Time is not our friend").  If the processes that removed carbon dioxide ran at a swifter pace then it would be easier to line up the incentives for action because expensive efforts would yield more visible returns.  Engineers need to be thinking about a new type of problem - - the "Time Inconsistency" problem.  This is a huge problem in many segments of society - - from public pensions to social security to climate change.  All part of the "boiling frog problem" - - where the benefits (like getting out of a pan of water as the temperature is gradually increased) are in the distant future, yet drastic changes are needed immediately.
• A global problem that mixes everywhere - - Any air pollutant that lingers more than one to two years mixes throughout the atmosphere.  Emissions anywhere cause global warming everywhere, a fact that creates tremendous political opportunities and difficulties.  The opportunity is that regulation can take place anywhere, which offers the prospect of searching the planet for the cheapest place to control emissions.  The difficulty is that regulatory efforts in one country are also easily erased by laxity anywhere.