Don't suppose anyone has considered that Austerity is the 1%'s answer to Global Warming?

"Cut Carbon 80%? Sure, I'm in the top 1% and I'll miss the cut."

Seriously, it could take a while to reconfigure the world into the Inner Party/Outer Party/Proles scheme of 1984, but that does seem to be the trajectory.

And even if it's not an overt strategy, Pure Free Market Capitalism and Resource Depletion will tend to take you there all by itself. i.e. All goods become more expensive over time so only the hyper-wealthy maintains its lifestyle. The expected social instability that the rapid reduction in everyone else's way of life is countered by an increasing surveillance/police state.