>> The US, China, India, Russia, etc are unwilling to pay for significantly accelerated reductions in CO2 emissions even when directly economically beneficial
Reduction in storm damage or wild fires for example. Once people have to flee coastal regions there will be a lot of money spent on dealing with refugees and most likely wars.
Yes, but currently, attribution is hard. And the press cried "wolf!" far too often with each and every lightning storm that was a little more severe than average. So currently there is no credibility in that future cost projections.
One example is solar hot water heaters are vastly cheaper than any other low grade heat source. Integrate them with traditional hot water heaters and you get all the benefits with nearly zero downsides. Yet, the technology is almost completely ignored by incentive programs instead of say adding them or other solar heat collection to building codes.