It is a complex problem. As far as I understand, in the criticism to any work on climate change in the west (at least in the US) is that people are still debating if it is real or not, in the face of evidence; hence there's lack of political will. And, in countries like India or China, the criticism is that lots of people need cheap fuel to get out of poverty and imposing restrictions would impede that. Though, the per capita consumption is way less compared to countries like US. That said, I wouldn't say these countries are not doing anything. I can speak for India, for example, there is the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission[0] that is a goal to achieve 100,000 MW of solar power generation by 2022 and I see developments underway in many states in India. There are similar initiatives in other areas like Wind energy etc.
And, the defeatist attitude that no one takes it seriously, lets just do nothing and hope it works out is dangerous. As far as I can tell, the island nations will be the first affected, not to mention harsher weather, more storms, followed by massive shortages of food and water. I wouldn't be surprised if that leads to more wars than funding research and innovation.
Yes, the US' continued debate over whether or not this is even real is maddening. Climate change has unfortunately been sucked into the great maw of partisan bickering, to loosely quote a different Vox article on the subject; belief or disbelief is not based on facts, but a deeply rooted sense of identity. And so, due to our highly tribal nature and inability to feel sufficient empathy for those in out groups, the US will not have the majority political will necessary to stop this problem. Barring a series of technological miracles that give us a bevy of cheap, carbon-neutral sources of energy generation and storage, we are completely fucked. I'll probably be lucky enough to die before things get truly awful, but if I have kids, they and their own children are going to experience the horror of a collapsing civilization.
I vote for politicians that take this seriously. I try to discuss the issue rationally and calmly with skeptical friends. I am trying to get involved with a project doing research on nuclear fusion. Beyond that, I try not to think about the fact that I could be one of the last human generations. Walking around every day feeling like the axe is over the neck of our species, and we are too divisive, petty, greedy and apathetic to do anything is just heart-rending. I truly envy people who don't believe (or care) this is real.
> experience the horror of a collapsing civilization.
Wait, what? Is there any serious prediction of global warming causing collapsing civilization? How would that happen? Hordes of starving Americans abandoning their jobs and storming Canada? We've had big famines before and they were localized to the countries they happened in. Sea level rise won't swamp many places. We've got Syria wrecked by war and civilization is doing just fine in Europe despite refugees.
Population explosion used to be going to cause collapsing civilization. So was nuclear war. Global warming is the panic of our generation. Something else we haven't thought of yet will surely be gripping people's fear 2 generations down the line.
The problem is the potential collapse of some civilizations. I have seen some serious predictions that the Middle East and North Africa in particular are vulnerable to potentially becoming uninhabitable in say 100 years due to too much extreme heat (https://www.mpg.de/10481936/climate-change-middle-east-north...).
Civilization overall will grind on regardless, but you've got to admit that just the Syria refugees alone threw a massive kink in European politics. A lot of the countries that are predicted to suffer the most from climate change already are fairly poor. So the question is how much could climate change contribute to political unrest?
I agree that it does no good to talk about climate change in very strongly apocalyptic terms. That's part of the issue in the US -- the largely politicized hype tends to frame this issue in almost quasi religious terms. Either you believe in an Impending Apocalyptic Doom That Will Kill Us All, or you believe in A Vast Global Conspiracy Scam Designed To Enrich Crooked Elitist Climate Scientists. While I think there's plenty of evidence for concern, I do think the evidence points more towards a slow creeping collection of issues more than any sort of mass apocalypse.
For instance, the state where I live (Florida) is fairly vulnerable to sea level rises. What this means is that any infrastructure with a 50 to 100 year horizon has to now account for the potential that sea level could be much higher in the future if you want to really be safe (see http://www.southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/wp-content/upl...). I don't expect Florida to be wiped out by climate change related sea rise but consider how much of Florida civilization is by the sea, I certainly expect some pain points. For poorer countries with much less resources, the pain points might be a lot harsher.
And, the defeatist attitude that no one takes it seriously, lets just do nothing and hope it works out is dangerous. As far as I can tell, the island nations will be the first affected, not to mention harsher weather, more storms, followed by massive shortages of food and water. I wouldn't be surprised if that leads to more wars than funding research and innovation.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru_National_Sola...