Symposia: Climate, Economics & Green Capitalism

LPE Originals

Plan Halmahera: Industrial Urbanism, Rechargeable Batteries, Replaceable Bodies

By Hendro Sangkoyo

The explosion of Indonesia’s nickel industry shows how demand for “green” technology by wealthy urbanites triggers resource raiding in the Global South.

LPE Originals

Damage Functions (Or Why I Am Mad at Economists)

By Madison Condon

Since the 1990s, mainstream economists have used past weather data to forecast the future costs of climate change. This mode of econometric prediction ignores the alarming tipping points and pervasive uncertainty that characterize our warming world.

LPE Originals

Risk-Rating and Networked Authority: A Climate Leviathan in Formation?

By Savannah Cox, John Hogan Morris, Zac Taylor

Credit rating agencies like Moody’s have amassed vast datasets about scale and distribution of climate risk. The proprietary “expertise” derived from this data increasingly guides how both governments and financial institutions respond to the crisis.

LPE Originals

Net-Zero Emissions: Good Climate Science, Bad Climate Policy

By Shelley Welton

The net zero paradigm disaggregates global emissions and allows each company to design an individualized plan. This atomized approach is not just amenable to manipulation – it frustrates the kind of collective action the crisis demands.

LPE Originals

Renewable Power: Who Will Own the Clean Energy Future?

By William Boyd

The IRA promises to pump billions of dollars into clean energy infrastructure, primarily though tax equity financing. This approach, despite its merits, all but guarantees that our clean energy future will be dominated by incumbent private actors, namely large financial institutions and private developers, who will capture the benefits of abundant low-cost renewable electricity.

LPE Originals

Offset Frontiers, Fossil Capitalism and the Law

By Larry Lohmann

The very idea of “offsetting” emissions requires the legal creation – and exploitation – of new sacrifice zones. Predictably, this approach has been a disaster for the environment. Less noticed, however, is the extent to which offsetting has warped the entire aim of environmental law.