Climate Change: Capitalism is a major cause, but can it also be a solution?
Let’s start with what this article is not: it is not about specific solutions to arrest the problem of global warming. That will be the target of some later blog posts. Rather, my purpose here is to focus specifically on the role of capitalism in climate change. To do so, I have decided to frame the debate by reviewing a book: “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate”, Naomi Klein, 2014.
As the title of the book suggests, Ms. Klein lays the bulk of the blame for our perilous environmental state on unregulated capitalism, with its blinkered focus on short-term profits and growth at all costs. She is not wrong. If we are to avoid disaster, things do have to change. Where we differ is over the question of whether capitalism is so inherently flawed that it needs to be jettisoned as an economic construct (her view) or if the capitalist, free enterprise system can be holistically redesigned via regulatory controls and incentives so as to become a positive driver of systemic change (my view). The title of my blog is “Confluence: Where the Environment, Economy and Capitalism Meet”. Her book is entitled “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate”. The different titles make clear the divergent paths we recommend to bring about the hoped-for similar results.
I will take up this debate in more detail below. But first, let’s look briefly at some of the other interesting points discussed in Ms. Klein’s book. The first section entitled ‘Bad Timing” focuses on the scale of the climate problem, how we got into this current predicament, the failed efforts to deal with it so far and what needs to change if we are to avoid catastrophe down the road. There is a lot of good information in this section and several themes worth exploring. One of those is...
Cognitive dissonance
Ms. Klein raises the valid question of why governments and the wider populace continue to carry on with life as normal despite all the evidence that immediate structural change in our economies is needed if the bio-system upon which all life on earth depends is going to survive? Climate change denial is not the sole purview of Donald Trump and his anti-science acolytes. Nor is it limited to the self-serving corporations and their executives and sponsored think-tanks that have sought to diminish the need for climate action for 40 years. The average person in this country knows that we are skating on increasingly thin ice. Yet the tendency is to look away, to refuse to react to an issue that seems simply too big, too distant and too abstract.
“We engage in this odd form of on-again-off-again ecological amnesia for perfectly good reasons. We deny because we fear that letting in the full reality of this crisis will change everything. And we are right.”
Many people take individual action to lower their greenhouse gas footprint. This is admirable but it is not enough. Nor can we count on technology to bail us out, though many innovations will be needed on the path to planetary salvation. The problem is simply too large. It requires nothing less than a root and branch redesign of our economic model if we are to avoid disaster. But to get there, we have to acknowledge that climate change is a crisis of the first magnitude and then act accordingly.
Political inaction of Hamletian proportions:
What gets declared a crisis is a decision of power elites and those that finance and influence them. Climate change has never received this sort of crisis treatment, in part because it is too far off; beyond the range of electoral cycles and management targets. Or perhaps, as Al Gore wrote, it is simply too much of “an inconvenient truth”. Global warming is a generational problem that requires rocking the economic and political boat. Most elected representatives find that contrary to their own interests. As Upton Sinclair famously observed: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” But to do nothing in the face of a clear and future danger to the world’s population represents a crisis of legitimacy of major proportions. Climate summit after climate summit has been filled with good sentiments, but little real action. To quote Naomi Klein, “The only thing rising faster than our emissions is the output of words pledging to lower them.” If adequate policies had been adopted 30 years ago, we would be well on the way to achieving a zero-carbon economy at a very low cost. The fact that we did not is, in part, capitalism’s fault. True, 110 governments have recently announced goals to become carbon neutral in the future (2050 is the target date for many). Others have gone further and pledged to be net greenhouse gas neutral (beyond just carbon dioxide). These are hugely positive policy initiatives. But they are very late in coming and implementation will be difficult and costly.
Confused priorities:
In the second section of her book entitled ‘Magical Thinking’, Naomi Klein explores what she encapsulates as “the disastrous merger of big business and big green”. If you have financially or morally supported such organizations as The Nature Conservancy, the Environmental Defense Fund or The Conservation Fund, as I have, you may not want to read this section, but you definitely should. From the Nature Conservancy engaging in oil and gas drilling for profit on land that it had set aside to protect one of the last breeding grounds of the endangered Atwater prairie chicken to many environmental groups taking money from the fossil fuel industry and/or investing some of their foundation money into extractive industry stocks, there is much in this section that will rankle. Far from battling a system that is destroying the planet, Klein feels that some of these entities have bought into it, content to try to make gains on the fringes rather than pushing to redesign the whole. There are, of course, a lot of environmental organizations that avoid such pitfalls and do truly great work publicizing the problems at hand and seeking to find and implement solutions.
Starting Anyway:
This is the title of the third and final section of Naomi Klein’s book. In the face of frustrating political inaction and what she views as the co-opting of some environmental leaders into the capitalist agenda, Ms. Klein pins her hopes on mass movements from below: from the governed, from regular people who finally shout “enough” and force change on their reluctant leaders. As she points out, the abolition of slavery in Britain in the early 1800s (which also involved undermining an economic system with huge vested interests), the women’s suffrage movement and the US civil rights movement were not led from above by the wielders of economic and political power, but rather were driven from the grassroots and their passionate leaders. The same applies to the very considerable legislative environmental achievements made in the 1960s and 1970s in this country: the Clean Air Act 1963, the Water Quality Act 1965, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act 1968, the Endangered Species Act 1973, the Toxic Substances Control Act 1976 and many more. Ms. Klein takes heart that many such movements to force a response to climate change have sprung up across the world in our own time, usually led by the young. One need only listen to a speech by Greta Thunberg to understand the reason for hope.
In crisis comes opportunity:
And now is surely the time for action. The holistic adjustments to the economy that are needed to bring about change won’t come quickly. Already the Paris Accord target of limiting global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels looks increasingly like a utopian dream. Meanwhile, governments across the globe continue to approve projects by fossil fuel companies to build ever dirtier and longer gestation oil wells, pipelines, plastic refineries and new coal-fired power plants, thus seemingly locking us into an accelerated warming trend. Even with all of this, there is still hope if we can move past the debilitating inertia that favors the status quo.
The crisis caused by Covid-19 could be just the catalyzing force needed to bring about substantive change. The depression of the 1930s led to the New Deal. World War II saw a huge mobilization of economic resources across the economy aimed at one end...defeating the enemy. Afterward, it also brought about a wide array of social programs: national healthcare in many countries, old-age pensions, subsidized housing, public funding for the arts, etc.
The global financial crisis beginning in 2008 presented a similar opportunity to re-shape the world. Mr. Obama wanted to do the right thing– to stop climate change by restructuring the economy. (See excerpts from his climate action speech in June 2013 in the appendix to this note.) And he had the power. The financial crisis had shattered the public’s faith in laissez-faire economics–people who lose their jobs and their homes tend to question the status quo. Big opponents like the auto industry and the banks had been knocked to their knees by the crisis and were dependent on government bailouts. But Mr. Obama and his government were too timid in their approach, in Klein’s view, too swayed by the ideological orthodoxy of believing the market is always right (despite all the evidence to the contrary). Or perhaps, more generously, they simply allowed themselves to be waylaid by other competing issues. Such is the nature of governing. Whatever the reason, despite a number of positive steps on the environment, the opportunity to make substantive change was lost.
Thankfully, the Biden administration is very focused on the climate issue. See excerpts from his Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, 27 January 2021 in Appendix 2 below. This pledged to put the climate change problem at the center of US economic and foreign policy. Rejoining the Paris Climate Accord and appointing John Kerry as his climate czar with a seat on the National Security Council represent the beginning of what we all should hope is a commitment by the USA to finally try to deal with the issue of global warming. The just-announced $2 trillion ‘American Jobs Plan’ includes funding for many climate initiatives: from electricity grid improvements and funding R&D in green manufacturing and energy to incentivizing electric vehicle adoption via rebates, building 500,000 charging stations and replacing the federal government’s diesel transit fleet with EVs. It also pledged to end subsidies for fossil fuel companies. At this point, we don’t know what is actually going to be implemented given the plan has to be pushed through Congress. But it clearly is a step in the right direction, It is certainly a welcome change to see an American government willing to lead from the front in industrial policy, rather than leaving everything up to the market.
Capitalism vs the Climate
Which brings us back to the debate at the heart of this article. Naomi Klein is convinced that the world’s inability to act to prevent climate change and many other environmental woes stems from our wholesale commitment to deregulated capitalism.
“Climate change pits what the planet needs to maintain stability against what our economic model needs to sustain itself...We are stuck because the actions that would give us the best chance of averting catastrophe - and would benefit the vast majority - are extremely threatening to an elite minority that has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most of our media outlets.”
In her earlier book ‘The Shock Doctrine, Ms. Klein makes the case that over many decades, corporate interests have systematically exploited crises to ram through policies that benefited a small elite by cutting taxes and regulatory control on corporations, while ransacking the public sphere via cuts in social spending and widespread privatization.
When historians look back on the past quarter-century and more of international negotiations, she writes, two defining processes will stand out. “There will be the climate process: struggling, sputtering, failing utterly to achieve its goals. And there will be the corporate globalization process, zooming from victory to victory: from that first free trade deal (NAFTA) to the creation of the World Trade Organization...a global policy framework that provided maximum freedom to multinational corporations to produce their goods as cheaply as possible and sell them with as few regulations as possible - while paying as little in taxes as possible. “. This “market fundamentalism has, from the very first moments, systematically sabotaged our collective response to climate change”.
In the 1990s, global emissions of CO2 rose around 1% per year. By the 2000s, with global supply chains stretched across the WTO-created trade world, and with China and Asia surging forward in economic production terms, emissions growth rose to c.3.4% per annum. The West’s economic model of grow or die, and its hugely destructive manufacturing, agriculture and consumption systems had been exported to much of the rest of the world, with the planet’s ecosystem bearing the brunt of the onslaught. This is undeniable. True, the process has lifted billions of people out of abject poverty, which is obviously a good thing. But the longevity of that success is very much in question if we don’t revive the natural systems of the planet which make economic activity possible.
“By posing climate change as a battle between capitalism and the planet, I am not saying anything that we don’t already know. The battle is already underway, but right now capitalism is winning hands down. it wins every time the need for economic growth is used as the excuse for putting off climate action yet again...For any of this to change, a worldview will need to rise to the fore that sees nature, other nations, and our own neighbors not as adversaries, but rather as partners in a grand project of mutual reinvention.”
She concludes: “we are left with a stark choice: allow climate disruption to change everything about our world, or change pretty much everything about our economy to avoid that fate. But we need to be very clear: because of our decades of denial, no gradual, incremental options are now available to us. Gentle tweaks to the status quo stopped being a climate option when we supersized the American Dream in the 1990s, and then proceeded to take it global...Either we will change our ways and build an entirely new kind of global society, or they will be changed for us.”
My View:
While I applaud the wealth of information to be found in this book and a lot of the author’s insights, I have a profoundly different view regarding the role of capitalism in dealing with the climate change problem.
It cannot be denied that unregulated capitalism is a key cause of our current woes. However, I believe that, if regulated effectively and made to place value on the natural capital of the world, capitalism could be the most effective system to get us out of our predicament. Dealing with the climate crisis will require, not just sacrifice, but innovation; not a turning away from the animal spirits of our capitalist economy but a re-directing of them to bring about an economy that enhances our natural systems rather than destroys them, and that works for the benefit of all, not just the few. Capitalism has been proven over a long history to be the most efficient means of spurring innovation and allocating resources to a given end. That ‘end’ to date has been purely based on the profit motive with little or no controls or guardrails to ensure equitable social and pro-environmental results. But that does not mean it cannot be adapted to seek those better angels.
As discussed in the thesis article of this blog, our current economic model has an inherent design problem. We continue to work within a linear, first industrial revolution economic model that places no value on the bio-systems of our planet. Yet these systems are the foundation stone of all economic activity and of life itself. We have gotten away with it for a long time, but with the rising scale of our population and economic activity, time has run out. Global warming is the consequence of our abuse of one of nature’s most critical cycles: the continual exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen among plants and animals. This recycling service is provided by nature free of charge. But now due to human activity, and particularly the use of fossil fuels which are at the core of our economy, the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has exceeded the ability of the denuded natural system to recycle it all. Hence climate change.
I believe that we need a new industrial revolution to transition us from a cradle to grave economy to a cradle to cradle one–or to put it another way, from a linear economic model to a circular one, mirrored on nature itself. This is not just about using less resources in production or reducing the amount of pollution caused, but rather changing the entire productive system so that is not environmentally destructive in the first place. Economic and environmental objectives need not be mutually exclusive or competing...they can be complementary and interdependent. We can transform industry, agriculture, energy production and all economic activities in-between from our current wasteful and destructive model to something more sustainable, in sync with nature and more equitable in the sharing of its benefits. And we can create countless jobs and huge scope for free enterprise in the process.
Specifically, regarding global warming, we have to work on two fronts. We need to vastly curb the emissions of greenhouse gases (CO2, methane and nitrous oxide in particular) on the one hand, while on the other hand we also need to build up the natural systems that absorb carbon from the atmosphere: planting forests instead of destroying them; creating conditions to encourage the proliferation of sea plants that are even more productive in terms of carbon absorption; adopting regenerative agriculture techniques that rebuild our desperately denuded soils so they can return to their natural carbon sink role. See my article on regenerative agriculture. But how do we bring about these changes?
Step 1: All parties need to finally accept the scale of the climate change problem and the absolute urgency to act now. No more cognitive dissonance!
Step 2: Governments must take the lead in bringing about economic system change. There is no other way this can occur. Free enterprise will not do it on its own. Governments, by employing their tools of taxation, subsidization and regulation, can set the parameters within which capitalism works and thus launch it on a new course. The goal here is to shift, not just the playing field of the economy, but the entire game.
A carbon tax is a good place to start, with revenues utilized to fund green energy alternatives. With the price of solar and wind power has tumbled over the past few years, a relatively small push from a carbon price could give renewables a decisive advantage; one which would become permanent as wider deployment and scale make them cheaper still. The same holds for electric vehicles and regenerative farming.
Removing the vast subsidies that support the fossil fuel industry and factory farms (taxpayer dollars) and directing them instead to innovators driving green industrial and agricultural change would be another huge step in the right direction. (Why is plastic so cheap? Because the manufacturers don’t pay a cent for all the damage they do to the environment, both in the production process and in the overwhelming waste stream. Worse still, they are subsidized by the public purse.)
The government can also actively stimulate change in the economy via their purchasing power, as NASA and the Department of Defense did in the 1960s and 1970s, helping to bring about the computer revolution with all its economic spinoffs. Mr. Biden, as set out in his American Jobs Plan, clearly wants to do a similar thing now to stimulate green industries and energy.
All of these steps are within governments’ power. With determination and the correct mix of policies, they can change the rules of the economic game. But even if successful, they cannot on their own bring about the transformation needed to deal with global warming and all of our other environmental challenges.
Step 3: The impetus behind that must come from the players themselves–the companies, farmers, service industries and consumers that make the economy happen. They will have to react to the new rules and incentives (stick and carrot) and find new ways to profit and achieve and thrive within them. Oh, there will be hand-wringing and much wailing, not least because these players have been pandered to for so long. But in the end, they will have to adjust, just as they did to the banning of CFCs in air conditioners or changing mileage requirements for automobiles. To be sure, there will be losers. But there will be winners also. Such is the nature of change. The profit motive will incentivize innovation which will lead to job creation, but now in a form that enhances the natural capital of the planet instead of destroying it. The fact is that renewing the balance between humanity and the ecosystem could be the biggest business opportunity of the next fifty years. Whole new industries will be created, many with jobs right here in America, not farmed off to Asia. Already in 2019, there were 250,000 workers engaged in the solar industry in the USA vs only 50,000 in the coal mining industry. This is just the beginning. Think of the transition now underway in the automotive industry as it moves toward electric vehicles. Or the need to build storage systems and high voltage transmission networks to move solar and wind power to where it is needed. Or the jobs to be created as we make buildings much more energy efficient. These are just a few of the enormous economic opportunities that the redesign of our economy will create–all of which will be positive for the environment as long as governments set the rules correctly.
Finance has a big part to play in this transition as well. How banks and investment firms allocate capital can dramatically shift the goalposts of the economy. Exclude the fossil fuel industry and other polluters from access to loans and investment capital and make it more available for innovative companies that enhance global sustainability and you will definitely see systemic change. It is all about altering the incentives. Reward company boards for long-term, sustainable growth rather than short-term profits and share buybacks and they will have to respond accordingly. That is how free enterprise works. The pressure on investment firms will come from the increasingly influential ESG investing movement. Banks, however, are another matter. According to a report from a coalition of NGOs, the world’s 60 biggest banks have shockingly provided $3.8 trillion of financing for fossil fuel companies since the Paris Climate Accord was signed in 2015. And the finance provided in the past year was higher than in 2016 and 2017. Let’s see if the Biden administration will tackle this important issue. It was certainly mentioned in his election manifesto.
Many on the right of the political spectrum will chafe at the idea of governments setting the parameters for how the economy or the corporate sector or the finance sector will work. In good economic times, they are all about getting rid of ‘big government. But isn’t it curious how quickly these corporate and individual citizens are happy to belly up to the trough when a crisis hits and they need a government bail-out? It shows just how weak the foundations of the economy are. From the constant subsidies provided to fossil fuel companies to the bailout of the banks in the global financial crisis to PPP aid to small businesses in the current pandemic, corporate America seems very confused and self-serving in its criticism of the role of government. The reality, of course, is that, just as in wartime, all parts of the polity and economy will need to pull together if we are to have any hope of success in stopping global warming.
Let us also not forget that one of the biggest environmental problems is poverty–or rather the urge of billions of people around the world to escape poverty and live a more comfortable life. Who can begrudge the disadvantaged this? If we follow the old linear, destructive economic system we have since the first industrial revolution, the consequences of lifting the poor from misery will be devastating to our bio-systems. All the more reason to redesign that economic structure into a cradle to cradle one so that a better life for the distressed billions can be achieved in harmony with the planet.
Returning to Naomi Klein’s thesis, there is also this pragmatic point to be made against her view that capitalism must be jettisoned if we are to take the actions needed to curb global warming...there simply doesn’t appear to be a viable alternative! The appalling record of communism is patently clear. Social democracy is a political system (which I personally support), not an economic one. It works by grafting a socio-political dynamic onto our capitalist economy to better share the benefits, itself a signal that the system can be shaped. The reality is that we cannot reasonably expect every person on the planet to suddenly change how they live, work, eat, travel and entertain themselves. Better to bring about change within the economic system in which they already exist than to try to find a new one. Capitalism has huge flaws which have resulted in the current environmental impasse. But its historical record in terms of encouraging innovation and adapting to changing regulatory circumstances suggests that it can be a potent force for positive environmental and social change–if we alter the parameters within which it operates.
Appendix 1: Remarks by President Obama at Georgetown University, 25 June 2013, announcing his climate action plan
In his action plan, President Obama called for the ending of subsidies for the big oil companies, new fuel-efficiency standards for cars and dramatically increased efficiency requirements for appliances and lighting. He also directed the federal government to aggressively cut its carbon footprint and called for an end to public financing for coal plants overseas, global free trade in environmental goods and services and help for communities most impacted by climate change at home and abroad.
Below are some quotations from Mr. Obama’s speech. Most of it still applies today.
So the question is not whether we need to act. The overwhelming judgment of science -- of chemistry and physics and millions of measurements -- has put all that to rest...the question now is whether we will have the courage to act before it’s too late.
Today, about 40 percent of America’s carbon pollution comes from our power plants. But here’s the thing: Right now, there are no federal limits to the amount of carbon pollution that those plants can pump into our air. None. Zero. We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury and sulfur and arsenic in our air or our water, but power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into the air for free. That’s not right, that’s not safe, and it needs to stop...So today, for the sake of our children, and the health and safety of all Americans, I’m directing the Environmental Protection Agency to put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants, and complete new pollution standards for both new and existing power plants.
Now, what you’ll hear from the special interests and their allies in Congress is that this will kill jobs and crush the economy, and basically end American free enterprise as we know it. And the reason I know you'll hear those things is because that's what they said every time America sets clear rules and better standards for our air and our water and our children’s health. And every time, they've been wrong.
For example, in 1970, when we decided through the Clean Air Act to do something about the smog that was choking our cities... some of the same doomsayers were saying new pollution standards will decimate the auto industry. Guess what -- it didn’t happen. Our air got cleaner.
In 1990, when we decided to do something about acid rain, they said our electricity bills would go up, the lights would go off, businesses around the country would suffer -- I quote -- “a quiet death.” None of it happened, except we cut acid rain dramatically.
See, the problem with all these tired excuses for inaction is that it suggests a fundamental lack of faith in American business and American ingenuity...When we restricted cancer-causing chemicals in plastics and leaded fuel in our cars, it didn’t end the plastics industry or the oil industry. American chemists came up with better substitutes. When we phased out CFCs -- the gases that were depleting the ozone layer -- it didn’t kill off refrigerators or air-conditioners or deodorants. American workers and businesses figured out how to do it better without harming the environment as much.
The fuel standards that we put in place just a few years ago didn’t cripple automakers. The American auto industry retooled, and today, our automakers are selling the best cars in the world at a faster rate than they have in five years -- with more hybrid, more plug-in, more fuel-efficient cars for everybody to choose from.
A low-carbon, clean energy economy can be an engine of growth for decades to come. And I want America to build that engine.
Those of us in positions of responsibility, we’ll need to be less concerned with the judgment of special interests and well-connected donors, and more concerned with the judgment of posterity. Because you and your children, and your children’s children, will have to live with the consequences of our decisions.
Understand this is not just a job for politicians. So I'm going to need all of you to educate your classmates, your colleagues, your parents, your friends. Tell them what’s at stake. Speak up at town halls, church groups, PTA meetings. Push back on misinformation. Speak up for the facts. Broaden the circle of those who are willing to stand up for our future... Remind folks there's no contradiction between a sound environment and strong economic growth.
Appendix 2: President Biden’s Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, 27 January 2021.
Key points made:
The United States and the world face a profound climate crisis. We have a narrow moment to pursue action at home and abroad in order to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of that crisis and to seize the opportunity that tackling climate change presents. Domestic action must go hand in hand with United States international leadership, aimed at significantly enhancing global action. Together, we must listen to science and meet the moment.
It is the policy of my Administration that climate considerations shall be an essential element of United States foreign policy and national security. The United States will work with other countries and partners, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to put the world on a sustainable climate pathway. The United States will also move quickly to build resilience, both at home and abroad, against the impacts of climate change that are already manifest and will continue to intensify according to current trajectories.
The USA will work with other nations to form a plan for promoting the protection of the Amazon rainforest and other critical ecosystems that serve as global carbon sinks, including through market-based mechanisms.
Identify steps through which the United States can promote ending international financing of carbon-intensive fossil fuel-based energy while simultaneously advancing sustainable development and a green recovery.
...ratify the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, regarding the phasedown of the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons.
Despite the peril that is already evident, there is promise in the solutions — opportunities to create well-paying union jobs to build a modern and sustainable infrastructure, deliver an equitable, clean energy future, and put the United States on a path to achieve net-zero emissions, economy-wide, by no later than 2050.
We must strengthen our clean air and water protections. We must hold polluters accountable for their actions. We must deliver environmental justice in communities all across America. The Federal Government must drive assessment, disclosure, and mitigation of climate pollution and climate-related risks in every sector of our economy, marshaling the creativity, courage, and capital necessary to make our Nation resilient in the face of this threat. Together, we must combat the climate crisis with bold, progressive action that combines the full capacity of the Federal Government with efforts from every corner of our Nation, every level of government, and every sector of our economy.”
It is the policy of my Administration to lead the Nation’s effort to combat the climate crisis by example — specifically, by aligning the management of Federal procurement and real property, public lands and waters, and financial programs to support robust climate action. By providing an immediate, clear, and stable source of product demand, increased transparency and data, and robust standards for the market, my Administration will help to catalyze private sector investment into and accelerate the advancement of America’s industrial capacity to supply, domestic clean energy, buildings, vehicles, and other necessary products and materials.
Fossil Fuel Subsidies. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall seek, in coordination with the heads of agencies and the National Climate Advisor, to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies from the budget request for Fiscal Year 2022 and thereafter.
...take steps to ensure that, to the extent consistent with applicable law, Federal funding is used to spur innovation, commercialization, and deployment of clean energy technologies and infrastructure.
...encourage the voluntary adoption of climate-smart agricultural and forestry practices that decrease wildfire risk fueled by climate change and result in additional, measurable, and verifiable carbon reductions and sequestration and that source sustainable bioproducts and fuels.
Reading List:
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, Naomi Klein, 2014.The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein, 2007. http://www.shockdoctrine.com/
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, William McDonough and Michael Braungart, 2002
Bloomberg Opinion: ‘Capitalism Caused Climate Change; It Must Also Be the Solution’, 14 October 2020.
Weforum.org: ‘Is capitalism incompatible with effective climate change action?’, 3 September 2019.
Climate Capitalism: Global Warming and the Transformation of the Global Economy, Peter Newell and Michael Paterson, June 2010.
Climate Capitalism: Capitalism in the Age of Climate Change, L. Hunter Lovins and Boyd Cohen, 2011.
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins, Paul. Hawken, 1999.
An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, Al Gore, 2006