I agree with this in principle, but only insofar as it applies to western countries. Emissions from the developing world will continue to increase (rightfully so, given we had such massive head start) and they will have little incentive to curtail emissions, even when climate-related disasters become more frequent. The only unilateral solution seems to be a technological one, therefore necessitating carbon capture.
Just like late-development countries didn't avoid getting celphones and investing in mobile internet before they could put their wired internet in place, developing countries will stop their emissions on about the same time as developed ones.
Nobody is making any bit of extra work towards cleaning the planet. And that's a really big shame for the developed countries.
> The only unilateral solution seems to be a technological one
Or a political one. Developed countries provide them a small financial incentive to build out renewables instead. Some kind of UN fund. It doesn't have to be a large incentive, it just needs to tip the financial decision over at the margin. The economic logic: it's a retroactive carbon tax, of sorts, given the extreme inequality in emissions per-capita since the industrial revolution. It's also a pragmatic solution, because it's cheaper to prevent the emissions than extract it after they've been released.
