Credit: earth.com

Humans evidently have known much about the environment and climate change for decades, yet somehow this ‘knowledge did not translate into power’ yet (Oreskes & Conway, 2014).  What does it mean to say that ‘knowledge did not translate into power’ in this context?  Why has the world, to a large extent, failed to adequately act on this knowledge? 

To what extent is it conceivable to imagine a change of this state of affairs by 2030? (think, for example, of the way governments have reacted to slow/negative economic growth during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic)