Andrzej Rostek/Shutterstock

While the UK needs to accelerate its energy transition, targets are being missed, projects run into delays, and the public wonders why progress feels so slow. The temptation is to blame politics, funding or technology. Yet there is a deeper reason the road to net zero keeps stalling.

Everything in our modern life, from our roads to our factories, have been built around readily available fossil fuels. As a result, we expect things to happen quickly, to last indefinitely and to disappear without consequence.

Why this expectation? Burning coal, oil and gas taps carbon and sunlight that were locked away over millions of years and releases that energy in a matter of decades. That compression of deep time (the vast geological timescales of Earth’s history) into human time gives the impression that highways, buildings and plastics can be produced at speed and endure without limits. Through burning fossil fuels, millions of years worth of stored sunlight and energy can be transformed into concrete, plastics and electricity in a matter of hours.

When we talk about decarbonisation, we are not just changing fuels. We are being asked to change this entire pace of living.

Fossil fuels made energy cheap and abundant, and so our economies were organised around speed. We learned to pour concrete and we assumed it would stand for decades. We built factories that ran day and night and supply chains that delivered instantly. Convenience became normal.

In this context, it makes sense that governments promise to “accelerate” the green transition. The problem is that the very systems we are trying to fix still run on the rhythms of the fossil era. They are not designed to slow down or pivot quickly.

Read more: Five ways to improve net zero action – our new research highlights lessons from the past

The North Sea’s recent “tieback” oil licences help show what is really happening.

The UK government’s new North Sea strategy is a case in point. The introduction of “transitional energy certificates” or “tiebacks” allow new drilling on or near existing fields. So while the UK has committed to banning all new oil and gas licences, some new fossil fuel extraction is still permitted.

Instead of marking a clean break from fossil fuels, they extend existing infrastructure by linking smaller oil fields to older platforms. This approach is faster and cheaper than starting new projects. On the surface, it looks like progress. But it keeps the old system going rather than rethinking it.

This logic shows up in how we build, too. Concrete is a telling example. In 2025 the UK announced its first carbon capture retrofit for a cement plant in Padeswood, North Wales. This so-called “net zero” cement factory will trap around 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year and start producing low-carbon cement in 2029.

This is a major technical step forward. Yet the retrofit does not change how cement is made. It simply adds a filter to an existing process that heats ancient limestone to very high temperatures. It still relies on the idea that we can turn geological time into buildings in hours and have them endure for centuries.

The four-year retrofit shows how slow it is to adapt a single plant, but the real lesson is that governments, industries and societies are investing heavily to keep the same rapid tempo of construction, rather than imagining different materials or building practices.

stone processing for cement industry
Decarbonising the cement industry will be a slow process. Vera Larina/Shutterstock

The electricity grid reveals a similar mismatch. For years Britain’s electricity network connected projects on a first come, first served basis. This model assumed a steady trickle of large fossil fuel plants. The surge of renewables has overwhelmed it.

By late 2025 there were more than 700 gigawatts of generation and demand projects waiting in the queue – over four times the capacity needed to meet the government’s 2030 clean power target. Some developers have been waiting a decade for a connection. The backlog exists not because there is a shortage of projects, but because the system was never designed to handle so many small, decentralised schemes.

Regulators are now reforming the queue to prioritise “shovel-ready” projects. That is a necessary fix, but it is also an admission that our assumptions of endless, rapid growth have outpaced the physical network we built.

These examples reveal a deeper pattern. We are not only managing emissions or upgrading technology. We are holding on to the pace and habits shaped by the fossil era. The green transition often involves making the old system more efficient, rather than asking what a truly different future would require.

Many also expect this transition to be as quick and frictionless as the fossil fuel era made everything seem. Yet decarbonising means reworking industries and infrastructure that took decades to build.

Cement plants last half a century. Power lines take years to plan and construct. Even the most optimistic timelines involve years of design, consultation and construction. This is not a failure; it is the reality of shifting away from a system designed for speed and permanence without patience.

Resetting the clock

Recognising this mismatch does not mean giving up on urgency. Climate change demands swift action. But urgency is not the same as haste. Instead of expecting every solution to scale overnight, we need to design policies and industries in a way that respects how long things take, and, indeed, whose timing counts.

For example, do policies align with corporate investment cycles, election calendars or the slower timelines of ecosystems and future generations? Whose timeframes shape action?

Building a low-carbon economy will not feel like the rapid transformations of the past. It will involve repairing, adapting and sometimes slowing down. But if we want to move beyond fossil fuels, we cannot keep living on fossil time. A successful transition will be one that aligns our policies, industries and daily lives with the slower, more regenerative rhythms of the world we depend on.

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This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Siavash Alimadadi, King's College London and Jonatan Pinkse, King's College London

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Jonatan Pinkse receives funding from the ESRC - The Productivity Institute.

Siavash Alimadadi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.