Although it's fashionable to denigrate 'economists' nowadays, I see this as a consequence of sovereigns not thinking like economists. At the macro level, it's

Although it's fashionable to denigrate 'economists' nowadays, I see this as a consequence of sovereigns not thinking like economists. At the macro level, it's a classic collective action problem - the tragedy of the commons [0]. There are many well-known and efficient solutions. So I guess the real problem is a lack of political will. The US and China are mostly to blame for the lack of global action. Yes this is probably 'unfair', but it still happens to be the case. Everyone comes to the bargaining table when those two are there. Heck, they could easily enforce a bilateral agreement on the rest of the world if they really wanted to. And at the national level, there's so much well-intentioned yet nonetheless sub-optimal, or frankly stupid, policy responses to this issue. Targeted technology subsidies, target abatement schemes, 'renewable energy targets' (i.e. picked winner targets, or 'cap and trade' without the trade) etc. It makes me want to scream. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons