In short, we aren’t on track to an apocalyptic extinction, and the new head is concerned that rhetoric that we are is making people apathetic and paralyzes them from making beneficial actions.
He makes it clear too that this doesn’t mean things are perfectly fine. The world is becoming and will be more dangerous with respect to climate. We’re going to still have serious problems to deal with. The problems just aren’t insurmountable and extinction level.
Yet I don’t see why we need any suffering - we have the technology to take us a lot of the way.
While you can argue the focus on cars, EVs will make a big difference, are available for essentially no lifestyle change, and getting close to price parity. We are at the point where scaling up will tip us past. While it’s too little, too late, this is only 10-15 years. The only losers are companies that can’t change but at that rate the global car companies will be Tesla, Hyundai, and a couple Chinese brands
While you can argue storage, renewable energy generation is growing even faster. It’s 20 years behind what we need but it is getting there
For my part,I just paid ridiculous amounts to an electrician, a plumber, and an appliance retailer, to convert my cooking from gas to induction (one small step to reduce my carbon impact and improve my respiratory health). The technology exists, it should not impact my lifestyle, but at least here in the US, it needs people willing to pay more to establish the market