[tfourb]

CO2 emissions are not the driving force behind economic development. Energy is. And energy generation has been decoupled from CO2 emissions in almost every major economy, including China. Heck, in many countries economic growth has been decoupled even from energy use, with economies growing while energy use shrinks.

And while technological innovation is always nice, we always possess all the technology we need to get rid of the vast majority of emissions today. It’s just a question of implementation (ie the political will to spend some money and maybe reduce the share price of a few fossil fuel companies).

[lumost]

While earnest, I’ve heard this claim for 30 years - that it’s simple political will. The reality is that until very recently there were only two economically viable carbon neutral energy sources. We now have four, however there are real unsolved problems with scaling three of those solutions. The only technology which can reliably solve the crises brings along its own set of externalities.

It does few favors to anyone to underestimate the scale of the problem facing the world. There is no set of political body in the world with the capability to freeze consumption and lock billions of people into poverty.

[tfourb]

„There is no set of political body in the world with the capability to freeze consumption and lock billions of people into poverty.“

I don’t think this is actually necessary to manage climate change (see my point advice above about the decoupling of economic growth and energy use). But just for the sake of the argument: „freeze consumption and lock people into poverty“ is literally what happens when nation states go to war and we have managed to do that plenty of times, including for really stupid reasons, without much of a problem.

Governments are also quite happy to freeze consumption and lock people into poverty if they can somehow be labeled as undeserving and/or threatening. Plenty of that going around recently.

[lazide]

In many (very real) ways, it’s like saying ‘people are fat because they lack the willpower to control their eating’.

Which, while generally true, isn’t going to solve the obesity problem anytime soon. Which I think is what you’re getting at.