For the past 150 years, humans have pumped extraordinary amounts of greenhouse gasses, such as CO2, into the atmosphere and warmed the planet at an alarming rate. To slow down climate change, societies tend to focus on two solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions: improving energy efficiency and developing and using renewable energy sources. United States President Joe Biden's climate agenda includes a large effort to upgrade buildings to be more efficient and proposes investing billions of dollars for clean energy research. But are these strategies working as we expect?