Why the market will never solve the Climate Crisis

RECENT TECHNICAL ADVANCES mean it is typically cheaper to produce electricity from renewable sources than from fossil fuels. Yet, around the world, the transition to green energy is happening too slowly if it is happening at all. As Brett Christophers argues, the problem is rooted in the absurdist nature of capitalist priorities: saving the planet on which our lives depend is not sufficiently profitable.

"[Christophers] turns his sceptical gaze on climate change, and the attempts of western governments to nudge consumers away from fossil fuels ... masterly" - Financial Times

"The Price Is Wrong rejects the orthodox reasoning that a mix of technological innovation and market wizardry will be enough to save the Earth." - Guardian

"Christophers's provocative yet persuasive thesis posits that the low profitability of renewables is a feature not a bug of our energy systems ... The problem is not that grubby capitalists are growing fat off the free fruits of the land and sea but that there is not enough profit guaranteed in renewables to satisfy investors and, most significantly, bankers." - Times Literary Supplement

"Despite its simplicity, Christophers's account is a quietly radical one that contravenes the received wisdom of not only the technocrats, mainstream economists and free marketeers who tout the wonders of the market, but also many on the left, for whom the problem with profits is typically their being far too high." - New Statesman

"Powerful and intuitive ... The book is as much a plea for economists to show humility as much as it is a rallying cry for market reforms and an expanded role for the state." - Times

"One of the most persuasive and rigorously analytical thinkers of our present age ... [The Price is Wrong] is a work of profound scholarship and the utmost importance." - Spear's Magazine

"Fascinating ... I'd commend The Price is Wrong to anybody interested in energy transition, and more broadly in the dysfunctions of modern capitalism." - Enlightenment Economics

"Christophers ... is the rare academic who can weave references to Italian radical Antonio Gramsci into fine-grained analysis of feed-in tariffs or offshore wind contracts." - Financial Times

"Makes a compelling case that renewables may be getting cheaper than fossil fuels, but they're still not profitable enough." - Financial Times

"The Price is Wrong is a brilliant and meticulous study of why [the outlook is not as rosy as many people think] ... a persuasive case for the nationalization of all power generation under statist planning regimes as the centerpiece of a global Green New Deal." - Commonweal

"Highly readable ... essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why the transition away from fossil fuels is so disastrously slow" - Ecologist

"Brett Christophers may be the most interesting commentator on finance and economics based in a university you've never heard of." - Times

"Brett Christophers has developed a rigorous empirical-historical critique of contemporary capitalism...impressive" - New Left Review

"Instrumental for cutting through the nonsense that is fed to us by the mainstream media" - Counterfire

"As the title of his book suggests, Christophers dismantles one of the most disastrously incorrect dogmas of the neoliberal era-the tired claim that the free market is the most effective way of allocating social resources." - Los Angeles Review of Books

"The Price is Wrong makes a detailed case against private power." - Sierra Magazine

"Over the past eight years, Christophers has produced five remarkable books of critical political-economy scholarship....if you want to read only one person to understand the broken and unequal world around us, you need to read Brett Christophers." - Nation

"The book forcefully and convincingly argues that when it comes to renewable energy, we cannot trust the private sector to invest at the scale and speed required....This elegant argument alone is reason enough for everyone to read this book." - Jacobin

"[A] coolly argumentative assessment of the green transition and the public discourse that surrounds and sometimes clouds it." - New York Times

"Succinct and compelling" - European Equity