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Imagine lazing by a pool on a warm summer day and drifting off to a soft sleep when suddenly someone throws a bucket of cold water in your face. Then another. And another, until you are wet, cold and very smart.
This is how I felt over the New Year holidays as I read a newly translated book about a major issue of our time: why is this, even as the dangers of a warming world become increasingly alarmingly apparent and even as we do we know what For decades, the response to the growing climate threat continues to be so inadequate?
The answer, says German sociologist Jens Beckert, is that the fundamental characteristics of contemporary life – modern capitalism, liberal democracy and our attachment to consumption – make it virtually impossible to deliver what the future health of the planet requires.
For those sleepy like sleepy suns to think otherwise, Beckert, director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, has a confrontational message.
“The necessary measures are not being taken and will not be taken”, he writes How We Sold Our Future: Failing to Combat Climate Changewhich came out in Germany last year and has just been published in English.
Beckert’s argument is hard to ignore. Yes, as we are told every day, many politicians, investors and business leaders want to reduce emissions, increase green energy and make the climate safe for their children. And yes, as we see at every annual climate COP, progress is being made. But progress at anything like the speed needed is being blocked by forces central to the way modern life is organized.
Incentives for companies to deliver profits may make it “perfectly rational” for executives to ignore future climate harm. Governments in turn depend on wealthy companies to provide the tax revenue needed to fund schools and hospitals – and the broader economic growth required for re-election. Green growth may be possible, but perhaps not at the necessary pace. De-growth, or any policy aimed at deliberately lowering living standards, is an “illusion”. Green consumers exist, but their impact is minimal. And so on.
I was still digesting Beckert’s book on New Year’s Eve when two Wall Street banks made his case. Citigroup and Bank of America announced they were leaving the Net Zero Banking Alliance industry group that Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo had already left in early December. More exits followed, and on Tuesday of this week, the six largest US banks all left, within a month, the climate alliance. They may still be, in Citi’s words, “committed to achieving net zero.” But they, and their shareholders, are no doubt also committed to staying financially competitive in a country whose incoming president has zero interest in climate progress and whose Republican allies claim net-zero alliances could violate the rules. antitrust.
Beckert could certainly be wrong. His book was published just as the FT reported that electric vehicles were expected to outsell internal combustion cars in China this year for the first time, smashing international forecasts and potentially dampening demand for diesel.
This is a sign that the long-awaited green energy transition may begin much sooner than expected. However, the operative word is “can”.
Beckert is no climate denier, and he does not want his book to read as a counsel of despair.
He hopes arguments like his will make it clear how much more urgently we need to think about adapting to life on a hotter planet, an argument that gained traction last week as wildfires raged in the Los Angeles area.
There is also, he says, a rational case and indeed a “moral duty” for citizens to continue to fight for a meaningful response to climate change that can mitigate the effects of warming.
Business has a vital role to play here. But as he told me on the phone this week, it’s futile to expect companies to unilaterally reduce their emissions and those of their suppliers, no matter the cost.
“The business will change,” he says, “if there are business models that make it profitable for them.”
Companies and their advertising agencies often like to pretend that this is not the case and act because they care. But the sooner the truth is known, the easier it will be to manage whatever the climate future holds.
pilita.clark@ft.com
