Are we really going to change our lives to avert global ecological catastrophe?

After at least 50 years of warnings and predictions of global mayhem due to capitalistic ecological vism, in 2006 an economist presents a paper on the effects of the global economy not turning green, and everyone is suddenly interested. It's reconned that we have 10 years to change or we're in for some serious sh1t. Can we really be expected to cooperate on a global scale to sort this mess out given the current global political and economic maelstrom?