US companies and individuals were already taking up the challenge, mostly by arguing for this agreement. The agreement's purpose is to set common standards, so as to defuse the race-to-the-bottom/prisoner's dilemma mechanisms of markets.
Companies often invite regulation when they want to do something for moral reasons that would out them at a disadvantage in the market. It's a common mistake to assume that industries object to all regulation: think of the small construction business where the owner still works himself, or cares for his people: he'll be among those profiting most from increased safety requirements.
> Companies often invite regulation when they want to do something for moral reasons
More often they invite regulation when they can get some gain for themselves. Its very common to pull in the state to enforce oligopolies because they would be stable for example, history of US railroads is basically that.
Government working against climate is basically bushiness competing to capture the rain of subsidies that will be flowing down the pipe. The businesses that are part of the status quo, work against this because they don't want their privileges and subsidies eroded.
Venture capitalist of course love climate subsidies because that means lots of startups and new tech. They don't make a dime on coal.
Arguing is all that's been done. Arguing, and demonstrations, and actions, and earth hour, and presumably some puppies were left home with the air conditioning set down one notch.
Oh no ! US withdraws from the climate accords. What impact will it have ? Well here's what happened when the US and the world agreed to "binding" climate accords:
Can you see it ? Me neither ... There are no words ...
Binding climate accords were signed in 1992, 2005 (sort of) and 2012. Look at those points on the graph ... Let's face facts here: climate accords make NO difference, no matter how binding.
Can everybody who makes claims that worldwide accords, climate action, earth hour, ... everything that's been done in the last 40 years makes one iota of difference please explain why anybody would put in any amount of effort here ?
The problem with CO_2 concentration is that it's a lagging indicator, and that any attempts to lower emissions has to fight against the increased use of energy as economies in Asia and Africa are catching up.
Politics is slow, and there are few mechanisms in international law to enforce treaties. But an international agreement can work, for example by giving politicians arguments ("We're required to do it, because we promised it", "We're not going to lose competitiveness, because everyone is doing it").
Thanks to subsidies, solar and wind power have become cheaper by several orders of magnitude and are now getting close to being competitive with fossil fuels, at least in some regions. Crossing that threshold would obviously be an inflection point.
> Thanks to subsidies, solar and wind power have become cheaper by several orders of magnitude
Subsidies have helped some to create more demand but the idea that they become better by orders of magnitude because of subsidies is absurd and totally against all economic logic.
Those things that had the best development are those things that are already useful anyway.
There are tons of things that got subsidies that never went anywhere.
Yes we do need government intervention to innovate and solve this climate problem. The free market does not work here because the actual, real cost of greenhouse gas emissions is not correctly adjusted. The runaway warming effect is going to cost enormous sums of money to solve and will cost us dearly in life, ecosystems, and global stability.
Corporations have long shown that they are not interested in truth, or sustainable profits, or people's health, or the environment. In fact, due to lack of government intervention, corporations like Exxon spread harmful propaganda that decreases the public's awareness about critical issues like climate change.
Collective action is important because this is otherwise a failure of humanity to recognize a tragedy of the commons. We need to collectively agree to solve the problem, through governments, because otherwise individual actors like states and corporations will increase their own wealth through greed at the expense of others.
Agree to disagree I guess. Global warming is something that needs to be addressed, but it is being heavily exaggerated. This does not help anyone except for the alarmists. It causes us to put our resources in areas that aren't useful. That money could be spent much more wisely elsewhere. In addition, the US is already doing fine without government interference, as shown by the decrease in US CO2 emissions over the past 2 decades.
Besides all the jobs and other economic factors that would disadvantage the US on a global scale if they agreed to the accord, we just have to look to Germany - a country that is following the standards put in place by the accord - to see what the consequences would be. They pay more than 3x per kWh for electricity than the US. This might be something that the middle class and up could afford, but this would unfairly target the poor and in poorer countries would cause death and suffering. This alone is reason enough to look for better solutions.
> Global warming is something that needs to be addressed, but it is being heavily exaggerated.
It isn't. Please read the latest IPCC Summary for Policymakers. It's a relatively quick and easy summary of the current scientific (yes, scientific, not opinion) understanding of the state of climate change, where the climate is heading, and what will be required to prevent or mitigate bad outcomes. Yes, scientific understanding changes and improves over time, but the best thing to base your decision making on is the scientific understanding we have now, not hopeful guesses about the future.
Sheesh, I'm getting downvoted to oblivion here just for having a differing opinion. Believe me, I've studied the science. I want to study it even more. I've just gained a different opinion based on that study than the majority on this chain obviously. I guess my opinion is not welcome.
Your opinion is not only at odds with the majority on this site, but also with almost every climate scientist on the planet. We tend to respect the scientific method on HN. If you're going to claim that every climate scientist is wrong, you'll at least need to speak from a position of authority or preferably show some evidence to back up your opinion.
I'd love to see more companies and private businesses help solve the climate problems.
However (and this is all just my experience and opinion so YMMV), on an economic level private corporations and businesses are focused on maximizing profit and minimizing costs, whereas public and government projects focus on maximizing benefit and minimizing costs. Not saying corporations are unethical but there could be times when solutions and research interests could conflict with profits or income generation. A public research institute is supposed to provide a "disconnect" between the need for income generation and research so that your results are really focusing on maximizing public benefit.
Companies often invite regulation when they want to do something for moral reasons that would out them at a disadvantage in the market. It's a common mistake to assume that industries object to all regulation: think of the small construction business where the owner still works himself, or cares for his people: he'll be among those profiting most from increased safety requirements.