This is still an unrealistically rosy view in that it focuses mainly on policy changes, as if that's the worst of the disruptive forces they'll face.
As climate catastrophes intensify, social unrest will also increase. More and more people will migrate out of danger areas, impoverished by the disasters that wiped out their homes. We're layering this upheaval on top of all the other economic forces that have reduced so many people to poverty. Government will feel increasing pressure to strengthen their climate policies, but there will also be considerable push-back from the swelling ranks of the poor, because they will disproportionately pay for the changes (literally as well as figuratively).
The most de-stabilizing factor in this scenario is that no matter how draconian the government policies become in trying to reach low-carbon goals, life won't get any better. Even under the best case (fantasy) scenario of zero-emissions, the current level of greenhouse gases will not drop in our lifetimes. Even if we succeeded in carbon extraction (only a theoretical solution at this time), the ocean is holding a vast reservoir of excess carbon. For every metric ton of carbon removed from the air, the ocean will release a 1/2 metric ton of carbon to balance the equation. So that will be a much slower process (assuming it ever exists) than people realize.
So the climate conditions will continue to degrade for hundreds (possibly thousands) of years before current greenhouse gases are naturally removed from the atmosphere. People will sacrifice when the effort is shared by all and they can see the payoff, even if it's years away. They will not be willing to sacrifice if the top 1-10% of the country are skating by carefree and the climate conditions don't improve. There's no way to precisely chart our course beyond that point, but based on past history, it will be chaotic and violent.
I suspect what's happening is that reality is finally catching up with a lot of investors, and this is a last warning to them.
For the last 20 years, at least, my cousin, who is certainly not a tree-loving, Greenpeace-friendly, Greta Thunberg-fan sort of businessman, has been advising his clients in the energy business that fossil fuels are a sunset industry and if you're looking to build, finance, or insure a power plant, then it has to be renewables (and, because of who he and his consultancy partners are, governments, power companies and banks pay them a lot of money to be told this in detail, and to have him and his colleagues make it all happen).
One problem with this, of course, is that lots of people are carrying debt that, as cousin Bob has been warning them for years must inevitably happen, is becoming increasingly toxic because of the changing regulatory and and business environments, and it's getting passed on to other lenders in the form of increasingly junky bonds.
This, I think, is a warning that these bonds are soon going to do what junk bonds always do in the end, and it's really now time for investors to cut their losses and bail, unloading the toxic debt elsewhere.
Expect an imminent announcement from Florida about an exciting new investment opportunity in Trump Subprime Traditional Energy Bonds.
