Book Review: ‘Climate Capitalism’ Offers The Optimism We Need In These Times

 [Written for YouthKiAwaaz]

The AQI in Delhi has been hovering between ‘unhealthy’ and ‘hazardous’ for nearly a week. Schools have shifted to the online mode, there are restrictions on outdoor activities, hospitals are reporting a sharp uptick in the number of patients with respiratory-related ailments and newsrooms are running programmes on what can be done to tackle air pollution.

When you witness the same story repeating itself every year, it is easy to give in the despair. “The Toon Guy”, Rohan Chakravarty, captures this eco-anxiety in his recent cartoon when an environment campaigner mourns- “It’s a lost cause. Nothing makes sense. We are all doomed.”

In such a scenario, Akshat Rathi’s book “Climate Capitalism: Winning the Global Race to Zero Emissions” offers a glimmer of hope. The author takes us on a journey across five continents and profiles unlikely heroes who are driving the fight against climate change.

From the Chinese bureaucrat who did more to make electric cars a reality than Elon Musk to the Danish students who helped to build the world’s longest-operating wind turbine or the American oil executive building the technology that can reverse climate damages, the book introduces us to people who are working in different ways to develop and scale technologies that can bend the carbon emissions curve.

Capitalism brought us to the brink of a catastrophe; capitalism needs to save us from it

It is unfettered Capitalism that has brought the world to the brink of a climate catastrophe. Though it has been obvious for decades that we cannot continue polluting the “commons” of the atmosphere without having to eventually pay an extremely heavy price, we failed to tax polluting industries.

Now, we have a limited time window for deploying solutions to reverse climate change, and that time is certainly not sufficient for overthrowing capitalism and replacing it with a more benign system. If we are to achieve zero net emissions by 2050, it can only be done by reforming capitalism and harnessing the forces of capitalism to tackle the climate problem.

Climate capitalism, the author argues, is about aligning the world with what is considered economic common sense.

The author uses ten case studies from across the world to show how, in the long run, it would be tens of trillions of dollars cheaper to achieve climate goals than to deal with the costs that come from the damage caused by missing them. China is the world leader in the production of both Electric Vehicles (EVs) and the batteries that power these EVs; though the two stories are not directly linked, both were caused by the coming together of favourable government policies, people with an entrepreneurial spirit and the persistence required to develop new technologies.

The success of solar power in India too can be attributed to the coming together of people, policies and technology, and the story of wind power in Denmark shows how government policies can catalyse people and technology to come together to generate clean energy.

In the chapters, “the Fixer”, “the Billionaire” and “the Wrangler”, the author profiles individuals who, in very different ways, contributed to creating an enabling environment for clean technology. These are individuals who influenced government policy, ensured the flow of capital into cutting-edge research and who ensured that the climate agenda figured in top-level discussions.

Perhaps the most inspiring stories are those featuring Vicki Hollub and Paul Polman. Vicki Hollub, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, flipped the business model of her company from being one that extracts carbon from the ground to one that attempts to capture carbon from the atmosphere and bury it deep underground.

Yes, government policies played a role in making it economically profitable for her to do so. Still, this example shows that carbon capture is something that can be attempted on scale. Paul Polman changed the focus of Unilever to ensure that social responsibility was at the core of all their processes, resulting in the consumer goods company becoming the most sustainable company in the world. These two examples hold out hope that capitalism can align itself with challenging climate goals.

The book is overtly optimistic, but don’t we need optimism?

The book, however, paints an extremely rosy picture. While the ten stories profiled in the book show that a ‘green economy’ is both possible and profitable, what is left unsaid is the fact that this is possible only when multiple factors fall into place at the same time.

Each of the success stories is a result of the combination of favourable government policies which follow a carrot-and-stick approach, financial investment into R&D, technological breakthroughs, people with the foresight and ability to drive new processes, and a market that demands and consumes clean technology. It is unlikely that any of these success stories can be replicated if one or more of these factors are missing.

This book is an antidote for people living from eco-anxiety. It shows us that all is not lost; that if enough individuals demand accountability and climate justice, they can force governments, capitalists, and scientists to come together to start working on their ambitious climate goals. In the words of Bill Gates, who is also featured in the book, “(the book is).. an important read for anyone in need of optimism.”

The book is published by Hachette India. I received a review copy of the book, but the views are my own.