This chapter analyzes how fossil-fueled capitalism forged the structural conditions of today’s climate crisis. Tracing the long arc from the Industrial Revolution through the post-1945 Great Acceleration to contemporary globalization, it argues that rising emissions are not episodic policy failures but systemic outcomes of energy regimes, infrastructures, and institutions built to maximize capital accumulation. Human activity has already driven about 1.1 °C of warming and pushed atmospheric CO₂ to roughly 419 ppm, situating the historical record within a rapidly destabilizing climate system. Fossil CO₂ emissions remain near record levels (≈37.7 GtCO₂ in 2023), reflecting deep technological, financial, cultural, and regulatory lock-ins that stabilize high-carbon development pathways. Synthesizing environmental history, political economy, and climate science, the chapter shows how coal, oil, and gas were embedded in industrial production, Green-Revolution agriculture, and mass logistics, coupling economic growth to increasing carbon intensity and consumer demand. It foregrounds global and intra-national inequalities rooted in colonial extraction and unequal trade, highlighting how affluent consumption patterns drive disproportionate emissions: the wealthiest 10% contribute roughly half of annual global emissions while the poorest 50% contribute about a tenth. The chapter concludes that technocratic fixes alone are insufficient without institutional reforms that realign incentives, dismantle fossil rent-seeking, and invest in low-carbon infrastructures. Policy implications include equitable carbon pricing and standards, strategic industrial policy, reparative climate finance, and participatory governance capable of coordinating just and durable transitions across scales.