The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won't Save the Planet

by Brett Christophers

The main answer, and argument, is this. Viewing the economics of the energy transition and the development of renewable energy through the prism of price results in contradictory perspectives such as those identified above because, economically, the matter is not in fact principally about price. Price is a misleading yardstick for assessing the current and future prospects of investment in renewable energy infrastructure. This is the main message that the book’s title is intended to convey. To be clear, the point here is not that the particular prevailing price of renewable power is wrong – in terms, that is, of precipitating a faster transition. It is that to look predominantly at price when thinking about what makes for a successful (or failed) transition is to look in the wrong place: as an analytical lens on climate and capitalism, price is a siren. Thus the book’s argument with those (principally economists) who obsess about what the price of renewables – and indeed of carbon – ‘needs’ to be in order for clean power to usurp fossil-based power is not that their answer is incorrect. It is that their question is. Price is the very wrong category to prioritize analytically.