|
That cuts both ways. Signing it would have made a lot of people feel good without actually doing anything. All the accords and agreements in the world will do nothing to help get us out of this mess. There is only one thing that will save us: technology. Clean energy sources, clean storage, more efficient use, etc. And it has to have a lower price across the board than what we already have, in order to ensure adoption. It also has to work just as well or better than what we already have, or no one will use it. Nothing else will help, because no matter what pieces of paper are signed, people will not give up their lifestyles and they will not pay more for what they perceive as the same thing. They will continue to drive cars, fly, eat meat, and so on. And those around the world who are not already living that kind of lifestyle are working as hard as they possibly can to get there. The only thing that will be palatable is to give people things that they perceive as being just as good (or better), with the same or lower price tag. Nothing else will work. Need an example? Just look at CFCs. Did the world stop using them because everyone cared about ozone? That's what everyone said at the time, but in reality the change only happened because there was an alternative that didn't come with a higher price tag and didn't have any significant disadvantages. We got lucky. If the alternative had cost even a tiny fraction of a penny more per unit, or not worked every bit as well as CFCs, industries across the world would have spent untold sums of money lobbying against it, calling ozone depletion a myth, and so on, just like we are seeing today with climate change. If you truly care about climate change, you'll stop worrying about political agreements and start working on clean technology. Nothing else will work. |
Climate change reminds me a lot of dieting. People say they want to do something about it, but in reality they don't truly want it because they can't tolerate the sacrifices required.
So we speak in aspirational tones: "I really should lose some weight", "I should eat better", "I should exercise more", and then we turn around and go back to doing the same things as before.
Only with climate change we're fighting that at the societal level.
The only solution is to correct incentives. Ideally that would mean: tax bad behaviour, subsidize good behaviour, and eliminate barriers to change.
But of those, only the last is possible, because the first two require government action that no one actually wants to take because, again, people aspire to thwart climate change but don't actually want to make the necessary sacrifices to do anything about it.
And that last option, eliminating barriers, comes down to technology by making it cheaper and easier to not dump CO2 into the atmosphere.