Moving Toward an Ecologically Oriented Capitalism (“Eco-Capitalism”)

Abstract

The Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping the cumulative temperature increase below 2 °C implies steadily reducing greenhouse gas emissions to a point where the world achieves zero net carbon emissions by 2060. We are nowhere near such a transition to a carbon-neutral economy. To get there we have to phase out fossil fuels and replace these energy sources with renewables , improve energy efficiency greatly, move toward less polluting means of transportation, change many industrial processes, retrofit buildings, make cities more sustainable, transform the way we grow and consume food, and expand our planet’s carbon sinks (e.g., forests). These changes are tantamount to a different type of capitalism. But when looking at the long-term evolution of capitalism, we see that such systemic transformations follow a certain identifiable pattern which makes the transition to eco-capitalism conceivable.