Emissions: Crack Down Now or Make a Graded Response?

I am more than a little loath to write this post. I have no direct financial interests in any petrochemical or emissions-generating company. I am also not a climate scientist. I am an aging Brit. I was an educator and a professional scientist, for around 50 years. But I operated in a very different specialism (Psychobiology) and in very different times. There is a danger that I might just be revealing my biases/lacks of expertise. When the question is posed as above, it sounds as if we have a binary choice. I'm not sure we really do. Let's look in turn at the pros and cons (as I see them) for each of the approaches? The Case For Immediate Action on Emissions. Pros: 1. The climate crisis is already with us; 2. It will (irrespective of what is done) take a really long time for 'greenhouse gases' in the atmosphere to return to pre-industrial levels; 3. The Earth's climate may already be at or approaching 'tipping points', where it becomes difficult/impossible to reverse changes; 4. The 'guestimations' of 'safe' levels of global heating and time we have left to correct things may be wildly out; 5. We seem, however, to have developed some of the technologies for making a transition to low carbon energy production and 6. There appears to being a growing consensus (however vague?) that 'something needs to be done'. Cons: 1. The transition will cause real hardships to some people; 2. It could, at least initially, have major disruptive effects on economies/industries/living standards; 3. Less developed countries may be precluded from enacting the changes that have occurred in their developed counterparts and 4. It could be viewed as undemocratic to have changes largely imposed on people. The Case For a Graded Response on Emissions Reductions Pros: 1. The transition could be 'balanced' with changes made without too much impact on people; 2. Now is not the time for change, as people and economies are just emerging from the Covid19 pandemic; 3. People now 'deserve' opportunities to travel to see friends and families, as well as to take holidays; 4. Making transition slower, gives companies (e.g. petrochemicals, air travel and agriculture) time to invest in 'alternatives' and change the focus of their operations; 5. Novel technologies like nuclear fusion and carbon capture have time to be developed/improved; 6. There would be more time to educate people on climate change and to encourage behavioural alterations and 7. There are more votes in this approach for politicians. Cons: 1. Nobody has any clear idea of how much time is available to make an 'orderly' transition to carbon zero; 2. Pledging sounds fine but the pledgers will be out of office, by the time the pledged date arrives; 3. Companies may simply carry on drilling for oil and gas, increasing air traffic etc because they can; 4. Human behaviour, especially in the more priveledged areas of the planet (where the major polluters live), may not radically change and 5. We may simply encourage a 'race to the bottom', where countries largely do their own thing. I don't think there is much of a real choice. I'm not even convinced there will ever be a concensus for anything. I hope I am wrong.