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if/when green energy becomes important enough to the majority hurdles and fences will be taken down to allow for change

until then we just have bickering and lack of progress

Such standards tend to get, um, modified, as it becomes apparent they can't practicable be met.

Yes, especially when a politician conveniently sets a goal for half a decade to a decade beyond when they'd be term-limited out of the office. 

If the goal is aspirational and there are not short-term milestones that the politician commits to in order to show progress towards the goal, you know it's bull manure. 

While we talk about government action, it's important to highlight that there are private actors in the market who are actually trying to achieve goals on their own.

There's an organization called the Science Based Targets initiative, where companies will publicly commit to vetted emissions targets and a specified timeline, with the worst-case goal being targets that are aligned with the 1.5C warming level of emissions. 

My own company just announced last week that they're targeting 100% renewable energy by 2030, and to be net-zero in all of our scope 1 and scope 2 emissions by 2032. 

As I've (I think?) said before, part of it is the company trying to do a good thing, but another part of it is that our customers demanding that we reduce our emissions. Because in the emissions game, our emissions "flow down" and must be counted as theirs, so they need us to improve to hit their own targets. 

As is probably the usual case, we'll see private business start to make meaningful strides here on their own, and then when the time is right, the gov't will set a "standard" and claim victory like it was all Washington's idea in the first place. Effing pikers.

I recall clearly when my company declared that ALL our plastic would be compositable/biodegradable by 2000.  Those of us who were "experts" got a kick out of this.  So far as I know, NONE of their plastic meet that target today.  I was in  the middle of it, it was a fascinating area technically.  My boss told me it was absurd, but it's a job, and to do whatever I could and have fun.  I was spending money like crazy at times.  About 1995, all the projects just magically disappeared one day, and I was transferred (to another idiotic project I turned into a real product in time).

As noted above, it's pretty easy to set targets 5-15 years out ...

I am back from throwing a rubber baseball against the tennis practice wall.  I got soaked with sweat though it's 74°F and cloudy.

I'm practicing my pitching lessons, they have helped.

It was a rather large consumer products outfit in Cincinnati.  I worked in their R&D department, a good bit of that working with polymers of various types, usually of the  thermoset variety.