It's easy to see the market producing a lot of cheap renewables now and think the government was never necessary, but without the government's early and heavy investments and mandates, we would have reached this point much further in the future.

To give an example, in the late 80s/early 90s, California mandated that 10% of major automakers' car sales be zero or very low emissions. GM started leasing EVs in 1996, and Toyota start selling the first hybrid in 1998.