These are different categories of problems. The problem with climate change is that it might overwhelm our ability to solve it in the "short term" where "short

These are different categories of problems. The problem with climate change is that it might overwhelm our ability to solve it in the "short term" where "short term" is defined as on the scale of a few generations to a century. In the long term humanity will, if trends continue, be so incredibly wealthy and technologically advanced that we'll be able to tackle problems like CO2 in the atmosphere a lot easier. We'll be able to seriously consider remediation efforts (deciding what the ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere we want is and then making that happen). We'll be more able to respond to climate change by moving our cities, changing our food production strategies, and so forth. That's pretty much guaranteed as long as humanity continues advancing technologically. But we're not there yet. Much of the world is still impoverished and developing. And there's a great potential for vast human misery. The point of these efforts is to give ourselves enough time to not get completely screwed by climate change before we have the power to deal with it more easily.