Meanwhile, the United States, the richest and most powerful country in world history, is the only nation among perhaps a hundred relevant ones that doesn’t have a national policy for restricting the use of fossil fuels, that doesn’t even have renewable energy targets. It’s not because the population doesn’t want it; Americans are pretty close to the international norm in their concern about global warming. It’s institutional structures that block change. Business interests don’t want it, and they’re overwhelmingly powerful in determining policy, so you get a big gap between opinion and policy
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