The simple explanation of the problem is that the Industrial Revolution caused carbon fuel usage to grow until it became a controlling factor in climate regulation.

The real problem comes from the fact that while we started to understand that many years ago, we haven't acted on that knowledge fast enough, yet. Especially in the direct presence of the people who profited extraordinarily from producing the fossil fuels for use, a misinformation process was used to prevent people from understanding or believing in just how bad things were. [This has been limited to The United States, it's growing Oligarchy, and their control of much of congress. And the Canadial government which quickly switched from being environmentalist to being strongly supporting of the fossil-fuel extractivist industry. And similarly in Australia, as they have tried to monetize their coal reserves. ]

Demonstrably, there are people for whom near-term profit trumps protecting future generations of humans. Thus, we become lemmings headed for the climate cliff.