This assumes that behind the business and political worlds we actually personally participate in, there is some ultra-rational global they with long time preferences and everyone's collective best interests at heart. Why would "they" allow all this new coal construction?
There is no "they". There is only "us". When you see your local congressman or MP or mayor speak and think, "what a dunce", as you well might, you need to remember that there is no hidden "adult in the room" who really runs things. This is it. Nobody will come and protect us from our collective decisions.
I'd say there are multiple adults in the room, and they sometimes fight, sometimes form alliances. They often do not care what you think is rational, your tribe's word for "good", because they are not of your tribe. Some have long time preferences but "collective best interests" to them means "civilization still stands somewhere on the planet".
My comment is based on extensive professional and social interactions with other people in leadership roles. It is very frequently the case that such people, including government ministers simply don't have as much independent power of action as you think.
The original parent comment said that if things were really so bad, then something would be done with the implication that since not much is being done, things cannot be so bad. Since we are not mass-building PWRs and running five parallel crash fusion programmes, it must follow that someone has examined the evidence and decided that the problem of climate change is not so bad and therefore we are not doing those things.
The problem with this view is the assumption that there is a someone or a group of someones who sit back, review IPCC reports and then have the ability to collectively compel the political leaders of the world to act rationally. If there was such a group then their lack of action would indicate that they had made a rational decision not to act.
My point is that there are no such people. The powerless enjoy the fantasy of conspiracy because it means that all it would take to solve our problems is some kind of board room coup of the Majestic 12 standing committee.
The reality is that everyone in the system has to act within their roles in the system. Executives at oil companies will say that they wouldn't mind a carbon tax, as long as it was equally applied to all companies. That's logical as they would continue to have a level playing field with the other oil producers and it will take years for us to get off oil as a species anyway. Oh but they don't have the power to pass an oil tax, that's for government.
Politicians in smaller countries will say, they would love to pass such a tax but unfortunately it needs to be global or it will just erode their competitive advantage without reducing emissions. Only if large trading blocs like the EU and US united on enforcing such a system could it be done.
American politicians might say that they personally would love to but they'd need a majority in the Senate, the House, and the right person in the White House.
None of these people are being disingenuous, they all have an accurate view of the limits of their own power within the system. My point is that there is no "outside the system" which can update the system to work better for large collective action problems or force a solution. It's cogs in the machine all the way up. Even the power of Donald Trump, as leader of by far the world's most powerful nation has substantial limits to his freedom of action.
The rational conclusion I make from all this: the rumors of our impending demise have been greatly exaggerated, if all people with means and influence do to avert it is read bullshit from a teleprompter every now and then.
1) People do act irrationally, even well informed people.
2) I don't actually agree that "they can order the government to do as they please". Saudi Arabia killed one of Bezos' employees and hacked into his phone. What has he been able to compel the US government (headed by someone who hates him) to do about it? Barack Obama did attempt to change US policy on climate change and was not able to because no single person has the ability to move US policy that way.
From reading the report it's debatable Bezos' phone was hacked at all. The report seems to be more to provide plausible deniability to whatever Sanchez's relative that leaked Jeff's dick pics to the press.
I don't see what SA has to do with any of this.
The problem is that people aren't necessarily great at investing for the long term, especially if they think they'll be dead by the time the benefits arise.
> What's puzzling to me is why the opposite seems to be happening: some parts of the world shut down completely carbon neutral stuff and build things that are going to emit gigatons of CO2 for decades to come.
Because of flawed optics on nuclear, mostly.
Fusion seems like a bit of a black box to throw money into which isn't appreciated. Throw too little and you don't get there. Throw enough and you don't know when you'll get there.
Fission solves a lot of problems but nobody likes it in their back yeard and some countries have gotten a scare of it (japan, germany,etc) It also takes a very long time to build a new planet and there's many people saying gov should invest more in solar/wind/etc instead whilst we're in a time where a lot of nuclear plants are reaching their planned life time or have had it extended for a long time. Hell I think only the UK is planning a new one which is sad to see.
I think it's rather condescending to literally claim you know people's beliefs, even when they vehemently voice otherwise.
What's puzzling to me is why the opposite seems to be happening: some parts of the world shut down completely carbon neutral stuff and build things that are going to emit gigatons of CO2 for decades to come.
If we are to reach point of no return (or worse, have already reached it), the focus should be on building such an abundance of energy generation capacity that it would not only replace all carbon-emitting energy generation, but also help power atmospheric carbon capture at a scale that we'd need to avert the climate disaster.