If we make reducing emissions profitable our existing system will do it.
The other alternative is to completely rebuild our political/social system around something other than profit. Good luck with that, that's a fools errand.
When you put it like that it sounds really difficult, but what exactly would it mean to "completely rebuild"?
IMO it could look something like this:
- Governments around the world set up a Climate Change Council
- The council is given power to regulate industry, and assign national resources
- High impact industry is shut down or refactored. For example, coal should be banned, but oil companies should be nationalized and fazed out while alternatives are built
That's pretty much it. It's hard, and it's a large effort over a long period of time, but there's nothing impossible about it. We don't have to reimagine society to do it.
The economic forces that caused it were based on resource extraction.
Resource extraction is the core of our economy. Its why the US has vested interests in countries that have natural resources, and why the US is so quick to act when resources are nationalized.
We can either directly use taxpayer money to fund these initiatives and give them priority over things like starting wars and playing world police, or pay private individuals and ask very nicely that they help.
I much rather that national approach as I don't think middle men sapping a fat percentage is a great solution.
Its essentially a protection racket at the end of the day.
That can happen with tax code changes and land trusts.
We don't need to wait for new tech to scale up. We need to prioritize the planet.