[toomuchtodo]

Buy coal mines, coal generators, and petroleum refineries in developed countries, sit on the coal and dismantle the generators and refineries to destroy fossil fuel supply and force consumers to cleaner options. China is harder considering the authoritarian regime, but conversely they are deploying renewables very quickly because they don’t have nimby or property rights barriers (and they have a voracious demand for energy).

You want to find ways to dismantle fossil infrastructure in a manner that is too burdensome to go back once you’ve taken action. The only way forward is then lower carbon technologies (and yes, natural gas use may temporarily increase, but that will incentivize faster deployment of cheaper renewables paired with energy storage).

[jjranalli]

China indeed seems to be the hardest problem to solve.

But wouldn't it be better to go after the demand for energy from fossil fuels, instead of supply? I wonder if there has ever been a large scale attempt at this

[furgooswft13]

> wouldn't it be better to go after the demand for energy from fossil fuels, instead of supply? I wonder if there has ever been a large scale attempt at this

There has been, it's called the "global pandemic". The world will never find a better way to attack demand for energy consumption in such a short period. And you did not even notice. Your post would have fit perfectly well in HN circa 2019.

> What unprecedented measures could be taken to stop climate change?

Easy. Stop talking about it. Unthinkable I know. But I guarantee you life would go on and we'd all find other things to overreact to. Just like the "pandemic".

[toomuchtodo]

Demand is hard. You’re at the whim of irrational human consumers (and all that that entails). Supply is easy. You’re at the whim of violently rational economic actors with control of assets.

Assume a distressed fossil asset is for sale, and you want to acquire it to retire it permanently. You’re engaged with someone who isn’t emotional; it’s just business. You negotiate on the value of the asset(s), and once an agreement is reached, transfer of ownership occurs and it’s a done deal. It’s not like consumers when you’re at the whim of their identity and self in some cases, trying to sell them on clean power or mobility.

Bonus points if you can use leverage (policy, relationships, whatever) to drive down the value of the distressed asset before acquiring it for forced retirement. That’s just being capital efficient.

[jjranalli]

I could be wrong, but I doubt the approach you described alone could reduce emissions at the scale required.

What I'm trying to say is that (I think) the root of the problem are the economic incentives for fossil fuel companies. It's easier for them to compromise with governments (who can't strong-arm them) and pay fines (which in turn gets charged to their customers). I don't think this problem has ever been solved.

But what if for some reason consumers, at a large scale, stopped paying for energy produced with fossil fuels? Wouldn't they be forced to adapt?

Consumers may be emotional, but can also be swayed with the right incentives (governments typically play this part). I assume this to be extremely hard of course, but theoretically I feel like it would be the only way to align all parties in the same direction.

[toomuchtodo]

There doesn’t appear to be any meaningful political or government will to implement a carbon tax or shift policy rapidly to deprecate fossil fuel use in a timely manner. Those, of course, would be the ideal path forward, but radical solutions will likely need to come from outside of government based on how we’ve gotten to here.