https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/is-the-fight-against-climate-change-losing-momentum
Some financial institutions are backing away from emission pledges.
Archived copies of the article: web.archive.org archive.today
It's not "losing momentum" because those pledges were always lies. It's the corporate equivalent of "I'll get to it when I get to it". We never had that momentum in the first place, and we won't unless the force of law with actual consequences makes it happen. Bulldoze every company that emits CO2 and doesn't fix it.
I would be very concerned if one did not at least break even, but we can always bulldoze the bulldozing company at the end.
Even with a business to make money, how do they not understand that if humanity does not thrive, they stop making money? I can't wrap my head around this.
It helps if you're a sociopath. Bonus points if your vision of the future begins and ends with the next quarter's bonus targets.
Also bonus points if everyone else is behaving the same way, and extra bonus points if thinking and acting on climate change is hard and depressing.
Basically the nature of the problem is precisely the sort of thing humanity is collectively very bad at (think of the pandemic, which IMO didn't need to happen and we're lucky biomedical science was there to save us with vaccines). We're especially bad at it in this neoliberal culture too.
Basically we're embarrassing ourselves in front of future generations like all of the atrocious dumb shit that's happened in the past.
It’s playing the odds. Can I make enough money to keep me comfortable?
Nobody (with money) cares if the world spontaneously catches fire in 200 years. It literally won’t affect them.
Can “I” (with money) make enough to mitigate the results of climate change before everyone else (without money) suffers from it?
How much money is that? Well “I” don’t know, I better make as much as possible. Hopefully I can make money faster than the world burns.
It’s because of how they are financed and evaluated. Their investors/financiers expect a constant return on investment as well as yearly financial growth to justify their high stock values. It doesn’t matter if they have big enough or are already producing max profit. Gotta keep growing to match inflation which is also tied to growth. All powering a runaway train in which there is no conductor.
Name a time it "had momentum" all people did was just say they were gonna do something about it collect votes then didn't do shit.
I would say they put 100x more money and effort into greenwashing and marketing their so-called “environmental friendliness” than they ever put into actually fighting climate change. Not a doubt in my mind.
Yeah it was a political grift all along. Kinda crazy that China and India are doing the most shit about it out of necessity.
All these businesses know they are doing the wrong thing but the CEOs answer to share holders and shareholders only focus on profit. Governments are the only way to fix these big societal issues because any business who is early to make costly changes that affect profit in the short term will get killed in the market. If the government mandates changes, all businesses have to comply. No business has to stick it’s neck out to change, it’s an industry expense they all must make. Businesses hate risk without profit growth potential. The capitalist system just isn’t designed for these types of changes without a government guiding hand.
Seems to me that 1) no one (who doesn't realize what we're up against) wants to be the one to give up anything. 2) Many are hoping that tech will come up with some magical cure. 3) Nobody has really spelled out well - for big audiences - what the benefits will be.
Nothing is more human than procrastination and denial in the face of existential threat sadly.