No energy expert here, but thought I'd add a few random thoughts.
Firstly - Producing liquid fuels from atmospheric carbon dioxide. This has been under study for years by many scientific teams and the economic viability was predicted many years ago. (I seem to think limestone is required in the process so there is a potential environment/mining issue in the offing if the process chemistry is entirely dependent on limestone - I dont know.) I believe this means of recycling CO2 for any type of motive fuel is primarily seen as a solution for aviation, shipping and commercial road transport, but ! (that's the Geordie 'but !' - I learned it off many Geordie friends at uni') .
2ndly - Maybe someone will develop even better battery technology idc
not based on the fairly rare lithium element, but right now lithium is the sexy element everyone is depending on to
substantially contribute to getting us all out of the climate mess. I'm just hoping Cornwall is not now majorly geologically raped (on top of kaolin mining) to get a profligate world out of a bind !!
3rdly - There was (maybe still is) a conspiracy theory that the petro-chemical industry suppressed the hydrogen powered car. Unfortunately it costs a lot of money to bottle the most common element in the world ! But like producing power from wind turbines (see below), maybe time will turn the tide ?!
4thly - Green electricity. At the start of the "green energy" age knowledgeable 'Greens' were very vociferous about the environmental/economic cost of manufacturing wind-turbines versus their "climate" savings. I don't doubt they were right - then! However, the more renewable energy one produces and uses in manufacture the less true that becomes - the "savings" must surely be exponential !?? (I have no idea whether "we" have crossed the threshold yet.)
5thly - Comparative costs. It might not be Rishi Sunak who persuades us of the direct link between stemming climate change and the cost of living (i.e. price of goods
plus Tax) but we will have to accept very very soon, Survival of a planet (perhaps the only planet with sentient beings in our Universe or beyond - so some say) will not come cheap.
Summary:
I really really hate to say it, but I see nuclear power as a part of the means of saving our planet. (I hope "they" don't introduce many more nuclear-powered vehicles though - nuclear powered subs is already not good IMO. )
Perhaps, in time, we will find means of cost-effectively/RELIABLY launching our nuclear waste off towards the sun.
In the meantime, finding any really eureka-moment web-searches for scientific/alternative earth-saving energy developments makes my brain ache.
There will be, I'm sure though, increasingly (urgent) technologies investigated/developed and (equally urgent) human behaviours emerging , not least because of Covid-19 !!
[I stopped heating my house during winter many years ago - woolly pullies and layering really does work AND I am also helping to limit a proportion of the UK's economic wealth ending up in the pocket of energy companies/share-holders across the channel !!]
Just some random thoughts.
Edit: And then I forgot to add the thought/s that initiated the above - I reckon there will be acceptable alternatives to purely EV cars, but if not and if EV battery mileage/charge rates etc do not improve dramatically, then perhaps folk will get to know and enjoy their local environment rather more than hitherto !! Nothing wrong with the latter at all