I suspect the correct answer is somewhere between the two approaches.
And the EU has had a consistent push to solve it, unlike the US, which for instance during the Trump era pulled out of the Paris accord.
What you're looking for is magic. Magic would solve it.
It happens a lot around here lately but it's just such wishful thinking IMO.
If you have that much carbon-neutral energy, carbon-neutral materials, space, maintenance to really make a dent... And all those things don't displace green resources that could have been used for other necessary things instead... You wouldn't have had any problem to begin with.
See how much shit we get here when we get a few % less natural gas here in Europe. We're in a huge crisis over just that. That's a promille of what we'd need to capture enough carbon for 0.01 degree cooling.
It's just some distraction from the hard things that are needed to solve it. And a big paycheck for the industry behind it obviously.
Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, sure, but there is plenty of IT inside the machines. You are too concentrated on some very hip consumer companies and don't see the vast ocean of important businesses in the middle, that don't have much or any consumer contact.
Where is your evidence? What a horrible contribution to the discussion, both divisive (and without reason, out of nowhere), and of the lowest quality.
I actually went through the trouble and looked for the evidence missing from your post. If anything we need to look at Asia most of all. Also because at least for Germany, where through decades long contacts I witnessed some of it personally, we (Germany) transferred significant know-how to China quite voluntarily, and our big companies still insist on continuing to invest there even when many smaller businesses have become far more cautious. Link: https://www.reuters.com/world/german-dependence-china-growin... (German dependence on China growing "at tremendous pace" - paywalled)
Here's some, mostly opinion pieces so YMMV (I'm missing rigorous data and statistics with explanations of what they measured, these article are all too "freeform" for my taste):
- https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate...
- https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-4...
Somewhat better:
- https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/europes-capacity-a...
However, we also have https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03318-w so it's not so easy to make definitive statements about everything.
Probably because the EU (government(s)) doesn't sink as much money in to research as the US government. The technology of the US was built on Cold War spending:
* https://steveblank.com/secret-history/
Most of the tech we used in our day to day lives was also created with government spending:
Pretty much all the tech I use comes from the private sector
Also the US government is injecting a ton of money into private companies, so it's not necessarily visible.
This thread really brought out the libertarians in droves.
The correct solution was, of course, taxing externalities like pollution and CO2. That would've allowed the free market to search for solutions naturally and locally.
That is my main qualm with regulations: they are a brute force imposed solution which solves the perceived problem on the short term while doing damage and 2nd order effects on the long term.
Hacker News does not show a cookie popup, for example, because they have no intention of tracking you.