There is no doubt that the current capitalist economic system is environmentally unsustainable. Historically the emphasis on private profit-maximisation has been at the expense of the world’s climate and natural resources, but is there new scope for a less selfish economic system?
Over the last century the global economy has grown exponentially, creating wealth and development at an unprecedented level and rate. This was largely catalysed by the use of cheap, abundant, and unsustainable fossil fuels that are dramatically changing our climate. In 2019, 43.1 billion tonnes of CO2 were emitted into the atmosphere, as a result of human activities, an all-time high. But what if we could redirect the power and profit motive of capitalism away from contributing to the climate problem and towards driving solutions to help solve it.
At a simplistic level, capitalism is the pursuit of profit and wealth through the marketplace. The capitalist architecture of large-scale production and consumption markets assume those markets do not provide resources to mitigate any environmental damage of those processes. This requires non-market interventions of, ‘command and control’ policy from either state or social forces in order to reduce any ‘negative externalities’. These are the ‘off-balance-sheet’ or secondary impacts caused by economic activity and can be either positive or negative. The presence of negative externalities results in market failure, for example, the International Monetary Fund estimates the total unpriced cost of carbon emission from fossil fuels being $6 trillion – as it stands, climate change is the greatest market failure capitalism has ever seen.
Former Deutsche Bank MD turned environmental economist Pavan Sukhdev argues that ‘companies need to move on from seeing private profit as their sole purpose,’ and whilst this is beginning to occur, there is still a long way to go. What has driven the advance of environmental capitalism, in recent years, is an interest in innovation. It is increasingly possible for companies to out-compete direct competitors, make more money whilst
reducing their carbon impact, and introduce sustainable climate resolutions into markets. For the first time industries and corporations are beginning to see a ‘climate solutions marketplace’ become a reality. There has also been a change in how the market values companies through the combination of CSR and ESG factors and companies limit their access to pools of capital by not having a compelling ESG plan. These criteria are able to ensure business accountability and can measure the significance of a company’s efforts, meaning there’s more money to be made by addressing the climate crisis than there is through continuing to make it worse.
In essence climate capitalism is all about utilising its best and worst attribute – pursuing profit. There is money to be made in addressing the world’s climate crisis and investing in sustainable energy and conservation. Corporations have only scratched the surface of the economic potential in addressing climate change, it is estimated that the global renewable energy market will have reached $1.5 billion in the next four years. Capitalism is often criticised by its greed, if it continues to pursue profit with its selfish nature perhaps it too will be threatened by extinction. However, if it can evolve into system driven by green greed, capitalism may survive.
Facts • Balance • Context
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
Cloudflare | 1 month | The cookie is used by cdn services like CloudFlare to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not correspond to any user ID in the web application and does not store any personally identifiable information. |
Cloudflare Always Online | This cookie is set by the provider Cloudflare content delivery network. This cookie is used for determining whether it should continue serving "Always Online" until the cookie expires. | |
Cookie Consent | 1 year | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data. |
Login Paywall | 1 month | This cookie keeps track on whether the user is logged in and can view content. |
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
Google Analytics: Persistence | 2 years | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to persist session state. |
Stripe M | 2 years | This cookie is set by Stripe payment gateway. This cookie is used to enable payment on the website without storing any patment information on a server. |
Stripe MID | 1 year | This cookie is set by Stripe payment gateway. This cookie is used to enable payment on the website without storing any payment information on a server. |
Stripe SID | 30 minutes | This cookie is set by Stripe payment gateway. This cookie is used to enable payment on the website without storing any payment information on a server. |
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
Google Analytics | 2 years | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors. |
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
Amazon Load Balancer for Stockdio | 7 days | AWSALB is a cookie generated by the Application load balancer in the Amazon Web Services. It is used by the Stockdio Stock Ticker. |
Amazon Load Balancer for Stockdio | 7 days | This cookie is used for load balancing services provded by Amazon inorder to optimize the user experience. Amazon has updated the ALB and CLB so that customers can continue to use the CORS request with stickness. It is used by Stockdio Stock Ticker. |
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
Google NID | 6 months | NID cookie is a third party cookie automatically placed by Google services. To opt-out please visit https://adssettings.google.co.uk |
These cookies are used by the GDPR Cookie Consent Plugin. They only store whether the user has opted in or out of other categories. They do not store any personal data.
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
Cookie Consent: Analytics | 1 year | This cookies is set by GDPR Cookie Consent Plugin. The cookie is used to remember the user consent for the cookies under the category "Analytics". It does not store any personal data. |
Cookie Consent: Necessary | 1 year | This cookies is set by GDPR Cookie Consent Plugin. The cookie is used to remember the user consent for the cookies under the category "Necessary". It does not store any personal data. |
Cookie Consent: Others | 1 year | This cookies is set by GDPR Cookie Consent Plugin. The cookie is used to remember the user consent for the cookies under the category "Others". It does not store any personal data. |
Cookie Consent: Performance | 1 year | This cookies is set by GDPR Cookie Consent Plugin. The cookie is used to remember the user consent for the cookies under the category "Performance". It does not store any personal data. |