Green capitalism is in crisis. In the US, Trump has pledged to kill the Green New Deal and freeze federal climate spending. In Europe, sustainability policies are being rolled back. As government support dries up, the private sector pushes ahead with renewable infrastructure—not to replace fossil fuels, but to build on top of them. Is this the end of green capitalism, or just its next phase?
This question was at at the heart of “The End of Green Capitalism?,” a critical conversation on the shifting landscape of carbon markets, green finance, and infrastructure subsidies—and what it means for the global working class.
Watch the video recording and check out some resources below.
Organized by Red Natural History Fellows Kai Bosworth and Ashley Dawson at The People’s Forum in New York, this roundtable brought together leading thinkers and activists to ask what it would take to move beyond green capitalism—and toward a politics capable of addressing the root causes of ecological and social collapse.
Beginning with a provocation by geographer Brett Christophers, whose past life as an asset manager provides him a unique vantage on the contemporary crisis in ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) investing, Kai and Ashley engaged Ajay Singh Chaudhary and Alyssa Battistoni on a wide range of concerns around green capitalism and its fluctuating relation to the state—from crashing energy markets to the role of government in engineering the “green transition,” to false fixes like Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS).
This was the sixth event in our ongoing programming series, Natural History for a World in Crisis, curated by the 2023–2025 cohort of Red Natural History Fellows. Visit our blog to check out highlights and video recordings from each of the events to learn what “red natural history” looks like in practice.
RESOURCES
- “Woke Capitalism Just COLLAPSED. Here’s Why,” an Interview with Brett Christophers on Novara Media’s Downstream
- The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World, by Ajay Singh Chaudhary
- A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal, by Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen and Thea Riofrancos
- Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature, by Alyssa Battistoni
- “The False Promise of Carbon Capture as a Climate Solution,” by Naomi Oreskes
- “Energy and Industrial Systems,” from the Climate and Community Institute
- “The Public Power Files” from Transnational Institute.
- “Beyond Recovery: The Global Green New Deal and Public Ownership of Energy,” from Trade Unions for Energy Democracy
