Climate Capitalism by Akshat Rathi

 

Climate Capitalism by Akshat Rathi. Greystone Books, London, 2024. 

Review by Ed Meek 

We Have Made Progress 

In 2007, Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth warns of melting ice caps, rising seas, flooded cities and other disasters. Although Gore was the object of ridicule for what seemed then to be outlandish predictions, the manifestations of climate change since then have been relentless. In the years since Gore’s film, New Orleans, Miami, Atlantic City, lower Manhattan and the Seaport of Boston have all been underwater. Oh, and last year was the warmest in 125,000 years.

In 2014, Naomi Klein wrote This Changes Everything in which she argued that capitalism was leading to climate change catastrophes. In 2019, David Wallace Wells published Uninhabitable Earth. with worst-case scenarios: the end of life as we know it. For a few years there, the news was all bad, from UN climate reports to extreme weather events. Many of us were beginning to feel as if we were doomed and that humans, not especially good at playing well together or planning long-term, were not up to the challenge presented by climate change.

But recently, a shift has taken place in the global zeitgeist. There is now a preponderance of positive developments regarding the efforts, worldwide, to deal with climate change. This is happening for two major reasons. One is the plunging cost of green energy resulting in the fact that in many cases it is now cheaper to go green than to rely on fossil fuels. At the same time, it is becoming more and more apparent that the costs of not transitioning from burning fossil fuels to green alternatives are rising every year. The fires, storms and floods cause billions of dollars in damage and lost work. And the changes in climate may even be in large part responsible for the international refugee crises. Insurance companies are raising rates and, in some cases, refusing to insure coastal regions. And lawsuits against companies like Exxon are increasing.

Akshat Rathi, a reporter for Bloomberg News with a PhD in organic chemistry from Oxford has written Climate Capitalism as a testament to the positive changes that are taking place all over the world as a result of actions in “politics, technology and finance” to address climate change. “It is now cheaper to save the world than to destroy it,” he tells us. Rathi traverses the globe to engage with some of the major players in the fight against climate change.

He goes to China to talk to Wan Gang who was China’s minister of science and technology for many years beginning in 2007. Gang was directly responsible for developing China’s electric car industry “which sells more than 6 million EVs each year.” That’s three times as many as Tesla the most valuable car company in the world).. Rathi points out that “EVs are a climate solution because…they convert 90% of the energy stored in batteries into motion.” By contrast, gas powered engines use less than 30% of the energy from burning fuel while spewing carbon into the air. As in many other sectors of manufacturing, the Chinese government invested vast amounts of money to help develop their EV market share. Rathi goes from there to talk with the CEO of Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited, the biggest manufacturer in China of batteries. According to Morgan Stanly, “China owns more than 90% of the EV supply chain.” Volkswagen and BMW get their EV batteries from China; Tesla recently switched to Chinese batteries. In addition, if you want solar panels and battery back-up for your house, they are probably coming from China.

Rathi travels to India where solar power is particularly suitable to India’s hot climate and despite the high cost of capital, Indian entrepreneurs like Sumant Sinha are developing massive solar farms.

He talks to the head of the International Energy Association about the conflict between those who care about climate and those who emphasize energy. You can see this tension in China’s development of green energy while they continue to rely on coal. Rathi then zeroes in on Bill Gates whose foundation invests in innovative approaches to climate change. Among other things, Gates is investing in methods of manufacturing “clean steel” and cement.

Rathi spends a couple of chapters on a subject I was skeptical about: carbon capture. Removing carbon from factory emissions is actually being done effectively now. It is not a solution to climate change, but is similar to switching from oil to “natural gas” in that it reduces the amount of carbon going into the atmosphere. It is from that point of view an effective tool, since it gives us more time to implement enough green energy to support our economies. There are still entire sectors that need to use fossil fuels: trucking, aviation, the production of steel, cement and asphalt to name a few. In Texas, Rathi finds CEO of Occidental Oil, Vicki Hollub is using carbon capture to increase yields and cut carbon by sending captured carbon back underground to oil wells cutting emissions and increasing oil production.

Rathi goes on to green energy standout Denmark which now gets two thirds of its electricity from wind turbines (why can’t we do that?) and to the UK which has transitioned from nearly total reliance on coal to a mix of gas, wind and solar.

Rathi’s refreshing take on the green revolution reinforces Saul Griffith’s book Electrify in which Griffith tells us that when we need to replace cars, appliances, heating, we should go for the electric option. Rathi gives credit to the Paris Accords for jump-starting international efforts and he reminds us of the importance of the Biden Inflation Reduction Act in investing in green energy in the United States.

Hannah Ritchie, Deputy Editor of Our World in Data, has a new book Not the End of the World in which she also argues that we are making progress in dealing with climate change (see her Ted Talk).  And David Wallace Wells in his NYT climate newsletter tells us that he is surprised at much progress has been made.

There are areas Rathi doesn’t get into, hydrogen, new batteries from California based Quantum Scape, artificial meat (and/or vegetarianism), walkable cities, etc. Nonetheless, Climate Capitalism is a well-informed, accessible take on how the challenge of climate change can be met with capitalism.