[TeMPOraL]

> Climate change is a governmental problem that requires investing in energy use reduction, insulation, public transportation, and the like.

It's not a governmental problem, it's an inter-governmental problem. Don't forget that governments are in competition with each other as much as your local grocery store is in competition with a Wallmart on the next street.

There are two strategies to tackling global warming that I firmly believe are completely ineffective: hoping for individuals to suddenly reduce their consumption, and hoping for politicians to swiftly pass necessary regulations in their countries. Both are essentially the same: asking someone to make sacrifice and suffer immediate negative consequences, and paying them with hope that others will volunteer to do the same (instead of doing nothing and enjoying the relative increase in status/wealth/power).

The reason to invest in research and new technology is because it gives a way out of the conundrum. Technology gives additional options to politicians. For instance, where no sane policymaker would mandate immediate restrictions on energy production in a nation powered by fossil fuels, dropping prices and increasing availability of solar PVs makes it easy to start funneling money into renewables, which a) makes the politician look progressive/pro-eco, b) allows to decarbonize energy production without reducing it and making the nation less competitive.

So basically - yes, the governments are ones with the power and means to solve this problem. But they won't just go and do it, for the same reason companies on the market don't just agree to do something together. If you want to push them to change, you have to go along with the incentive structures that govern the nations.

[mrpopo]

> The reason to invest in research and new technology is because it gives a way out of the conundrum.

No, it doesn't. At least not by itself. We need a combined response of energy savings, energy efficiency, behavioral changes and green tech to have a chance to mitigate climate change effects.

Anyone who believes into innovation to get us out of this mess didn't make the math. Take aviation. The aviation industry currently burns 10% of the world's crude oil production. The current front-leader innovative "way out" is biofuels. Except if we used 100% of the world's agricultural surface to produce biofuel, we could only replace 25% of the world's oil consumption. Hard to imagine a growing aviation industry with that kind of constraint.

I'm OK with biofuels powering airplanes, but only if we collectively accept flying maybe 10 times less. The same kind of math would apply with hydrogen, etc. There is no exception.