What if our understanding of capitalism and climate is back to front? What if the problem is not that transitioning to renewables is too expensive, but that saving the planet is not sufficiently profitable?

Today's consensus is that the key to curbing climate change is to produce green electricity and electrify everything possible. The main economic barrier in that project has seemingly been removed. But while prices of solar and wind power have tumbled, the golden era of renewables has yet to materialise. The problem is that investment is driven by profit, not price, and operating solar and wind farms remains a marginal business, dependent everywhere on the state's financial support. The global economy is moving too slowly toward sustainability because the return on green investment is too low. We cannot expect markets and the private sector to solve the climate crisis while the profits that are their lifeblood remain unappetising. But there is an alternative to providing surrogate green profits through subsidies: to take energy out of the private sector's hands.

Meet the speaker: 

Brett Christophers is professor of human geography at Uppsala University's Institute for Housing and Urban Research. He received a BA from the University of Oxford in 1993, an MA from the University of British Columbia in 1995, and a PhD from the University of Auckland in 2008.

Chair: 

Rebecca Elliott is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at LSE and Research Associate at the Centre for the Analysis of Risk Regulation. Rebecca’s work explores the intersection of climate change adaptation with questions of moral economy, the welfare state, environmental politics, and social theory. Her current project examines the economic and political governance of climate change, with a focus on insurance. She has previously conducted research on sustainable consumption.