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Imagine lounging by a pool on a warm summer day and drifting off into a restful sleep when suddenly someone throws a bucket of ice water in your face. Then another. And another, until he was soaked, cold and wide awake.
This captures how I felt over the New Year holidays while reading a newly translated book about a central question of our time: why, even as the dangers of a warming world become increasingly alarmingly visible and even though we have known to do? How have we done it for decades, the response to the growing climate threat remains so inadequate?
The answer, says German sociologist Jens Beckert, is that the fundamental features of contemporary life—modern capitalism, liberal democracy, and our attachment to consumption—make it virtually impossible to achieve what the future health of the planet requires.
For those who have been lulled like drowsy bathers into thinking otherwise, Beckert, director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, has a confronting message.
“The necessary measures are not being taken and will not be taken,” he writes in How we sold our future: the failure to combat climate changewhich came out in Germany last year and has just been published in English.
Beckert’s argument is difficult to ignore. Yes, as we are told every day, many politicians, investors and business executives want to reduce emissions, boost 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 the necessary speed is being blocked by forces fundamental to the way modern life is ordered.
Incentives for companies to generate profits may make it “completely rational” for executives to ignore future climate damages. Governments, in turn, rely on thriving businesses to generate the tax revenue needed to fund schools and hospitals, and the broader economic growth needed for re-election. Green growth might be possible, but probably not at the pace needed. Degrowth, or any policy aimed at deliberately reducing living standards, is “delusional.” Green consumers exist, but their influence is minimal. Etc.
He was still digesting Beckert’s book on New Year’s Eve, when two Wall Street banks bolstered his case. Citigroup and Bank of America announced they would leave the Net Zero Banking Alliance industry group that Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo had already left in early December. More exits followed and, by Tuesday of this week, the six largest US banks had, within the space of a month, exited the climate. alliance. They may still be, in Citi’s words, “committed to reaching net zero.” But they and their shareholders are no doubt also committed to remaining financially competitive in a country whose incoming president has no interest in climate progress and whose Republican allies claim that net-zero alliances could violate antitrust rules.
Of course, Beckert may be wrong. His book was published as the FT. reported Electric vehicles were expected to outsell internal combustion cars in China for the first time this year, beating international forecasts and potentially dents oil demand.
This is a sign that the long-awaited transition to green energy could take off much faster than expected. However, the key word is “could.”
Beckert does not deny climate change and does not want his book to be read as desperate advice.
He hopes arguments like his make clear how urgently we need to think about adapting to life on a hotter planet, an argument that gained traction last week as fires swept through the Los Angeles area.
There is also, he says, a rational argument and indeed a “moral duty” for citizens to continue fighting for a meaningful response to climate change that can cushion the consequences of warming.
Businesses have a vital role to play here. But as he told me on the phone this week, it makes no sense to expect companies to unilaterally reduce their emissions and those of their suppliers no matter the cost.
“The business will only 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 recognized, the easier it will be to manage what the climate future holds.