Influence is an unusual sort of property possessed by people and organizations. Partly, that is because it tends to flow through people as much as vest itself in them. In a world without superheroes, power comes from who stand behind you, rather than what you are personally. People with nobody else’s influence flowing through them are free to behave virtually any way they wish, but are largely unable to drive societal change. By contrast, those with a great deal of influence flowing through them have the appearance of being able to drive societal change, but have a real ability to do so that is constrained by their ability to shape the outcomes that arise from the influence behind and around them. Some of these people might be able to drive real change, by skilfully combining their talents with the influence they possess. Others are simply conduits for the preferences of others, lacking vision or effective agency of their own. Paradoxically, it can be easier to be influential and effectively powerless than to be both influential and a driver of change.
A key example is politicians of different stripes. Some have more influence than others (cabinet ministers, for instance, when compared to backbenchers). They are not, however, unconstrained in the exercise of that influence. If they don’t direct it in a way that its backers are amenable to, it will be lost to the politician doing the directing, as their support evaporates and they lose power (substantively, if not in nominal terms). Serving as the mouthpiece of some industry or constituency might be an effective mechanism for earning a comfortable life, but it isn’t the kind of role that helps to address the key problems facing humanity today.
Perhaps the key task involved in addressing climate change is altering the thinking of those who have the sheer motive power to change things: regulators that need not be toothless, firms that can either resist or help drive a low-carbon agenda, and states that can choose to make a genuine mitigation effort or not to. Entities that are too enduring to ever be complete backers of the status quo need to be made to realize that the shift to a low-carbon economy must happen in one way or another, and it would be a lot better for them (and all else concerned) if that happens in a relatively prompt, orderly, and coordinated manner. Individuals and particular firms can be so entrenched in the present arrangement that their best strategy is always to resist change, but societies and economies are broader things. As things continue to move faster and faster in the world, they need to be ever quicker at realizing what elements of the present order can and should be propagated, and which need to be eliminated or transformed.