When I first read about the 1.5C target in the papers I laughed out loud.
For me, the 1.5C target is the same as budget targets for a new big construction project. Politicians say it'll take N million to get it to pass, but they all know it'll end up costing at least 2-3x as much.
Nobody, and especially not politicians, want to do what's required to keep it below 1.5C.
> Nobody, and especially not politicians, want to do what's required to keep it below 1.5C.
This is essentially the crux of the issue, no matter what anyone says. If we all wanted to, we could easily stop the pollution, at a possibly great expense to our privileged standard of living, yet that's just not happening.
Even if society wasn't all on the same page in regards to this decision, there are still plenty of actions that could result in such an outcome - think along the lines of protests at an unprecedented scale, both inside of the industries and outside of them, civil disobedience etc.
Yet that clearly won't happen until the living conditions get really tough and people are pushed over the edge in one way or another (consider the protests around 2008 in many countries, or something like Euromaidan in a different context). Until then, it's easier for companies and politicians to ensure that they won't be held responsible through lobbying and misinformation (as an example, consider what the tobacco industry did in the last century) and for most people it's easier to share whatever pro-environmental posts they like on social media to feel good, without actually doing anything.
The problem is that the legal things that you can do to oppose this trajectory are relatively limited (voting isn't entirely working) and many like myself would prefer not to do the illegal things (protests, depending on jurisdiction might be illegal) to not throw away their careers or not risk their livelihoods.
On a more positive note, there are initiatives out there where you can at the very least donate some money towards improving the climate situation: https://www.wren.co/ (can't comment on their integrity in detail, though)
Of course, this probably doesn't matter much when large corporations can just pollute more than private individuals will ever be able to make up for in any meaningful way. It's kind of sad to see this, here's hoping that better people are voted into the office, but sadly I'm too cynical to genuinely believe that.
For me, the 1.5C target is the same as budget targets for a new big construction project. Politicians say it'll take N million to get it to pass, but they all know it'll end up costing at least 2-3x as much.
Nobody, and especially not politicians, want to do what's required to keep it below 1.5C.