Grammatical structure and meaning of "that which cannot" in this context?
In fact, to conclude that climate change should mean shackling capitalism would be wrong-headed and damaging. Competitive markets properly incentivised, and politicians serving a genuine popular thirst for action, can do more than any other system to limit the warming that can be forestalled and cope with *that which cannot*.

-
I'm having trouble understanding the grammatical structure and thus meaning of the sentence including "that which cannot" here.

Does "cope with that which cannot" have to be connected to "can do more..."?
And what does "that" and "which" each indicate here? And also "cannot" do what? cope with climate change?

Thanks in advance.

Question

Grammatical structure and meaning of "that which cannot" in this context?
In fact, to conclude that climate change should mean shackling capitalism would be wrong-headed and damaging. Competitive markets properly incentivised, and politicians serving a genuine popular thirst for action, can do more than any other system to limit the warming that can be forestalled and cope with *that which cannot*.

-
I'm having trouble understanding the grammatical structure and thus meaning of the sentence including "that which cannot" here.

Does "cope with that which cannot" have to be connected to "can do more..."?
And what does "that" and "which" each indicate here? And also "cannot" do what? cope with climate change?

Thanks in advance.

Answer

It’s about pronouns (and a pro-verb). The pronouns refer back to “the warming” and the auxiliary verb “cannot” refers back to the phrase “cannot be forestalled”. “That” and “which” both refer to “the warming”. In this sentence, “that” is the object of the preposition “with”, while “which” is the subject of the verb “cannot”. The meaning is:

…to limit the warming that can be forestalled and (TO) cope with *THE WARMING which cannot BE FORSTALLED*.

Answer

...that can be forestalled and cope with *that which cannot* (be forestalled).