Thanks for responding, and for correcting my takeaway. I agree it's not an accurate statement.
We might be chasing our tails at this point. Power imbalances (current and historic legacy) is a big component of what I mean when I say this fight is against our super-organisms and their accumulative impact. I'm optimistic about what technology can do, but skeptical of anything that sounds like an excuse for anyone with economic or ideological incentives to write off emission-reduction strategies.
All approaches to climate change have to be implemented through a complex adaptive system in which billions of human individuals and superorganisms that have their own concepts of what is/isn't in their best interest, constantly recalibrating behavior against each other.
Will impoverished people be willing to stay that way just because the fossil-fuel bonfire is passé? Will there be clean alternatives for them to improve their lives? Will they be able to afford them? If not, will other actors with sufficient capital finance them? Will they suspiciously reject gifts from colonial powers?
If we're unable to avert the collapse of some ecosystems, will the people living in/around them placidly endure misery and await death? Will they chase better weather and food?
Will people in areas relatively enriched by shifting climates help pump the brakes, or step on the gas? If some of these are the same developed powers largely responsible for emissions to date, will they have enough internal support to actively reject this boon and take responsibility for the actions of earlier generations?
When primary fossil fuel demand peaks, will countries and landowners sitting on large fossil fuel deposits and companies producing them ease off to hold prices steady, or lean in to force prices down, undermine the short-term profitability of renewables, and extract as much wealth as possible before the party is over?
What if individuals and superorganisms that invested in profitable atmospheric CO2 capture iterate into technology that supports profitable extraction far below ~278ppm?
How many superorganisms will make the bet that they can make short-term profit by externalizing costs and some conscientious third party who'll feel compelled to pay $94-232 per ton to capture extra emissions?
Will superorganisms acquire companies that invent potential carbon capture technologies like this in order to extort rents from the patents, or repurpose the technology for some other application with little urgency to support the original intent?
Will rumors proliferate on the internet that large carbon capture facilities are a secret plot to poison or pacify the population?