No, you didn't read Wolf or afew incorrectly, so far as I can see. But my point is that we cannot expect the private sector to so use the savings glut. They are either too afraid due to uncertainty, conflicted by allegiance to fossil fuel interests or both. To fossil fuel interests the end of fossil fuel use seems more threatening than global warming - viewing the world as they do - through their pocketbook.

The solution is for governments to do the investment directly and at current interest rates. It can either tax those who are holding the savings glut or just ignore that money and create new money, well, at least those sovereign in their own currency can. The Eurozone would be fucked on that score, but what else is new?

My view is that global warming provides a challenge equivalent to that provided by WW II. It was when the business sector in the US and the UK and Commonwealth saw that their countries were committed to winning the war at any cost that the economies sprang back to life. The same would be true for a full on commitment to fighting global warming. We would get a twofer: put the economy back on track to full employment and do everything we can to save the planet. Sounds like an obvious winner to me.

But to the fossil fuel industry that would look like THE END. But that is far from the case, even for them. Their reserves could be even more valuable as feedstock for high value plastics, even if at a reduced level of extraction and resultant revenue. But they have assets and expertise that likely could be redeployed profitably as well.  

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."