How close? What solution? Do "we" need to "do "anything extra? Or will it just happen? Shirley you don't mean ITER.
I didn't say we're doomed. I said we will run the experiment and find out. No one has presented any data based alternative point of view.
Your questions are those of a pessimist. But I'll bite and give you some optimism.
Fossil fuels are simply stored energy. I believe that batteries (energy storage) are the real key to making viable "green" energy. Battery storage continues to improve, as does the cost of battery production. Who knows, maybe some government funded research in this area would produce something amazing. Graphene looks like it could be an awesome capacitor, for example.
A Graphene supercapacitor is said to store almost as much energy as alithium-ion battery, charge and discharge in seconds and maintain all this over tens of thousands of charging cycles. link
I've already linked the progress being made towards nuclear fusion. It really would be awesome if the US Government invested in more of this research.
Carbon capture systems continue to become more and more efficient, and will hopefully improve to the point to make a meaningful difference. Again, would be nice if some Big 10 universities got federal grant money to pursue this topic.
We continue to become more energy efficient.
There is a global effort to reduce carbon emissions, although it would be nice if the USA was on the forefront of this effort, instead of hindering it. If we treat it like a joke, others will, too.
We continue to move away from oil and coal.
There's more, of course.
I'm sure you'll put on your Eeyore hat when you respond to this post, and that's ok. There are a lot of positive changes being made. Put your tail back on. Humanity isn't done for yet.