The reality is that, in case you don't remember, there was a sea change in policies in the early 80s and policies that worked (remember how oil use was significantly cut in the late 70s and early 80s?) were not sustained, or even reversed, when they should have been extended.

Reagan tore down the solar panels on the White House. That's not benign neglect, that's outright sabotage.

Governments stopped increasing gas taxes, they failed to react to Saudi Arabia flooding the oil market in late 1985 to get prices to collapse (predatory market manipulation to kill off competitors).

And they thought that the temporary reprieve provided by Alaska and North Sea oil would be eternal. There will be no North Sea today, no Alaska oil, and no Saudi flood to make us believe that fossil fuels are plentiful.

A change to our energy infrastructure requires 20-40 years of consistent policies, not 5-10 years. You need to change the existing assets, and you need to fight the incumbents all the way.

Just because it's hard doesn't mean it can't be done. (In fact, nukes require the same kind of commitment. If it can be done with nukes, it can be done for energy savings, renewable energy and storage or storage-equivalents like not-time-sensitive energy consuming industries)

Wind power