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You have to be a bit careful here, though. If you think that "policy and regulatory reform" means international agreements limiting greenhouse gases are the way

You have to be a bit careful here, though. If you think that "policy and regulatory reform" means international agreements limiting greenhouse gases are the way to go, unfortunately I am afraid you are in for a really long wait. On the other hand, policies that push for new technologies, then kind of yes, but then it is more difficult to distinguish which one, the policies or technologies are the more important source of leverage (personally I do no think that it is even a feasible comparison). For example, "everyone" is laughing at Germany's super Energiewende that it is a expensive failure that has not managed to reduce Germany's dependence for coal at all. But then, if you have a look when Germany has built solar, it's share of the global new capacity at that time and compare that tho the learning curve and price development of solar, it is a bit difficult to conclude anything but Germany's policies have pretty much singlehandedly brought solar from laughably expensive novelty to something that actually can be competitive in certain markets. Then China continued from there, and now we are extremely close (if not already over) a tipping point where solar just keeps getting cheaper subsidized or not.

hutzlibu 7y ago
Germanys problem is, that nuclear is supposed to be banned long before coal. Now while I agree, that in the long term all energy should be from renewable sources, in the short term it is much more important to get those coal plants off the grid. Instead there were new ones being opened.
- ergothus 7y ago
  In the late 80s early 90s I was against nuclear power, because I saw no reason people/govt would want to off of it until the collected problems were disastrous. In the late aughts I changed my tune because coal is just too disastrous and indeed, people/govts werent motivated enough. So while I understand the simple practicality of going nuke to get off coal, I also expect that most of the potential downsides of nuclear will become reality before people will be motivated enough to do anything about it.

hutzlibu 7y ago

Germanys problem is, that nuclear is supposed to be banned long before coal. Now while I agree, that in the long term all energy should be from renewable sources, in the short term it is much more important to get those coal plants off the grid. Instead there were new ones being opened.

ergothus 7y ago
In the late 80s early 90s I was against nuclear power, because I saw no reason people/govt would want to off of it until the collected problems were disastrous. In the late aughts I changed my tune because coal is just too disastrous and indeed, people/govts werent motivated enough. So while I understand the simple practicality of going nuke to get off coal, I also expect that most of the potential downsides of nuclear will become reality before people will be motivated enough to do anything about it.