My WAG is that for years climate change has been regarded as a scientific debate rather than an existential economic, social, political, and military crisis. Now that climate change’s impacts are becoming more obvious, and will continue to do so, we will see more mainstream investment in tackling the problem. Inevitably, governments will be forced to invest in both research and infrastructure in dealing with climate change’s immediate impacts.
The real question is whether governments will do enough, proactively, soon enough to head off the absolute worst impacts of climate change before they actually occur, and I am highly doubtful that we will. We will react - as was said earlier in the thread, “it’s someone else’s problem to solve, not ours.”
Yes, I know. But it’s an old study that assumes rates of research and development remain steady, and which doesn’t seem to understand the urgency of the problem; which urgency affects, or certainly ought to, the effort and money put into rates of research and development.
It’s not the study but the world that doesn’t understand the urgency of the problem, and it doesn’t understand it because its driven by a global capitalist economy. Around 70 pct of the population that rests on that economy live on less than $10 a day but want to earn more in order to attain needs, have been earning more the past three decades, and also have wants. Meanwhile, the other 30 pct, which likely involves the ones who see this issue as urgent, are counting on that 70 pct to earn and spend more because their own income and returns on investment are dependent on growing sales of goods and services worldwide.
That’s also why it’s not an old study and in many ways mirrors your own solutions: we need to put more money into research and development. Of what? Means to lower carbon emissions but also maintain the same global capitalist economy.
But it is implied by the same study that the reason why rates of research and development will remain steady, if not go in different directions, is because the very thing that research and development needs to save is what they also depend on: a global capitalist economy. And that economy is driven by profit and competition.
Which is why recent leaked documents indicate that various countries wanted to water down climate report findings:
That, in turn, might involve using land needed for food production. In which case, we will have to do many things together, including carbon sinks, renewable energy, and decrease resource and energy use per capita. For industrialized countries, that will mean a significant decrease, and in a global economy with a world population that operates in the other direction.