gas and the advent of fracking may relieve the US of some pressure to use warfare
to secure future supplies of oil, but we would be wise not to underestimate the
resilience of the fossil fuel energy regime, nor the power of the interests that sustain
it and benefit from it, whatever its social and environmental costs. This should
chime a note of caution with regard to Mitchell’s optimism about the imminent
demise of the fossil fuel order. As Huber notes: ‘Any analysis of a mode of production
beyond capitalism, or the possible emergence of an “alternative energy economy”,
must come to grips with the deep embeddedness of fossil-energy in the most basic
forms of commodity circulation’ (Huber, 2008, p112). As the current political
economy attests, energy issues are at the epicentre of not only the geopolitics of
empire and the global climate crisis, but also the more banal, everyday reproduction
of capitalist social life.
Such an account also implies a critique, however, of the idea that transitions,
or indeed transformations, can be largely organized from above through ‘transition management’, visions or blueprints without the acquiescence of powerful
fractions of capital. This is not to downplay the role of the state per se, given its
willingness to intervene on behalf of capital in the ways described in the examples
above. Rather, it is to suggest that the ‘animal spirits’ of capitalism in their restless
pursuit of profit through innovation and (creative) destruction will be decisive.
There was no blueprint for previous industrial revolutions. We run the risk,
therefore, of having a mismatch between the theories of change implicit in many
under standings of what is implied by low-carbon energy transitions and what
historical experience seems to suggest about how, when and why change occurs
in capitalism.
Hence, a reading of the landscape of power exposes the enormity of political
lock-in: the interests and the durability of the order, but also the scope for radical
change as we have seen with the shift from coal to oil and now as the oil economy faces a growing challenge from a renewed ‘dash to gas’ and the spectre of
climate change. In doing so, however, this chapter has also highlighted the danger
that capitalist inequalities and patterns of exploitation will persist in the constitution of a lower carbon green economy unless there is serious attention to the need
for a ‘just transition’ involving new social compacts and deals involving capital,
labour, state and civil society. The evolving nature of the global capitalist system
has both intensified and rescaled the processes which have brought about the current
predicament for society and constitutes the terrain on which near-term strategies
aimed at addressing climate change and challenging the energy order which fuels
it, will have to be developed. It is precisely an understanding of this terrain, how
it has been formed historically through innovation, exploitation and struggle,
disembedding and re-embedding, that highlights the dilemmas and contradictions facing progressive movements today. Although signs of immediate and drastic
change are not abundant, there is significant movement from below, and it is worth
recalling that transitions, let alone transformations, take decades or often centuries.
7
Widespread public and political engagement with climate change is only 30 years
old at best and in its heightened form probably only 10–15 at most, which,
82 Peter Newell
to secure future supplies of oil, but we would be wise not to underestimate the
resilience of the fossil fuel energy regime, nor the power of the interests that sustain
it and benefit from it, whatever its social and environmental costs. This should
chime a note of caution with regard to Mitchell’s optimism about the imminent
demise of the fossil fuel order. As Huber notes: ‘Any analysis of a mode of production
beyond capitalism, or the possible emergence of an “alternative energy economy”,
must come to grips with the deep embeddedness of fossil-energy in the most basic
forms of commodity circulation’ (Huber, 2008, p112). As the current political
economy attests, energy issues are at the epicentre of not only the geopolitics of
empire and the global climate crisis, but also the more banal, everyday reproduction
of capitalist social life.
Such an account also implies a critique, however, of the idea that transitions,
or indeed transformations, can be largely organized from above through ‘transition management’, visions or blueprints without the acquiescence of powerful
fractions of capital. This is not to downplay the role of the state per se, given its
willingness to intervene on behalf of capital in the ways described in the examples
above. Rather, it is to suggest that the ‘animal spirits’ of capitalism in their restless
pursuit of profit through innovation and (creative) destruction will be decisive.
There was no blueprint for previous industrial revolutions. We run the risk,
therefore, of having a mismatch between the theories of change implicit in many
under standings of what is implied by low-carbon energy transitions and what
historical experience seems to suggest about how, when and why change occurs
in capitalism.
Hence, a reading of the landscape of power exposes the enormity of political
lock-in: the interests and the durability of the order, but also the scope for radical
change as we have seen with the shift from coal to oil and now as the oil economy faces a growing challenge from a renewed ‘dash to gas’ and the spectre of
climate change. In doing so, however, this chapter has also highlighted the danger
that capitalist inequalities and patterns of exploitation will persist in the constitution of a lower carbon green economy unless there is serious attention to the need
for a ‘just transition’ involving new social compacts and deals involving capital,
labour, state and civil society. The evolving nature of the global capitalist system
has both intensified and rescaled the processes which have brought about the current
predicament for society and constitutes the terrain on which near-term strategies
aimed at addressing climate change and challenging the energy order which fuels
it, will have to be developed. It is precisely an understanding of this terrain, how
it has been formed historically through innovation, exploitation and struggle,
disembedding and re-embedding, that highlights the dilemmas and contradictions facing progressive movements today. Although signs of immediate and drastic
change are not abundant, there is significant movement from below, and it is worth
recalling that transitions, let alone transformations, take decades or often centuries.
7
Widespread public and political engagement with climate change is only 30 years
old at best and in its heightened form probably only 10–15 at most, which,
82 Peter Newell