Groucho Marxism

The urgency of the task we face in combating climate change should now be clear to everyone. In one sense, implementing the measures required to achieve this is straightforward. The key element required is a rapid conversion to renewable energy across all sectors of the economy. We could start this immediately as the technology already exists. So why aren’t we doing that? One reason is that politicians have an unfortunate habit of exaggerating their achievements when it comes to combating climate change. For example, in 2024, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (remember him?!) claimed that Britain had the best record in the world for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, suggesting that we are already on track to meet our emissions targets. But is that really true?

The short answer is: no. Britain has been effectively ‘exporting’ its emissions, mainly to China, for the past 30 years. If the greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacture of imported products are included – as they really should be – the figures look very different, as many of the most polluting industries have moved offshore from Britain in recent decades. The result is that overseas emissions increased from 200 million tonnes CO₂ equivalent in 1990 to 400 million tonnes CO₂ equivalent in 2020. All major Western countries have followed a similar strategy in off-shoring emissions. Even taking overseas emissions into account, however, Britain has still reduced its overall greenhouse gas emissions over the past 30 years. So shouldn’t our politicians get some credit for that at least?

Again, the short answer is: no. The main driver for the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions was the switch from coal-fired to gas-fired power stations. This was done for a political reason – namely, smashing the miners’ unions – rather than an environmental one. And of course natural gas is a fossil fuel so the burning of natural gas still emits greenhouse gases, just not to quite the same extent as coal. Another driver in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions has been the widespread installation of wind farms, with Britain now deriving around 30% of its power from wind. But this figure is a lot lower than it could be. The equivalent figure for Denmark is 60%, which undercuts the frequently-made claim that there is no point in investing further in wind power due to its intermittency.

A recent study by Ernst & Young found that Britain has huge potential for future offshore wind energy generation, possibly as much as 1000 TWh per year, equivalent to several times our average energy consumption. And that’s just offshore generation. Other options are onshore wind farms and micro-generation, whereby wind turbines are installed on the roofs of buildings. The problem with the latter option is that it is less efficient than grouping turbines into wind farms because economies of scale are lost. Plus many people would not want to have a big wind turbine sticking out of their roof. But even if we discount micro-generation completely, it is clear that a combination of offshore and onshore wind farms would be more than sufficient to meet our energy needs.

The fact that many wind farms are already operational shows that there are no major technical barriers to connecting them with the national grid. The intermittency problem can be addressed by developing ways to store large quantities of energy. Fitting each wind turbine with a lithium-based battery would help even out energy availability. There are other possibilities too, such as storing excess energy by hauling rail wagons uphill, then releasing the energy when there is an energy deficit by allowing them to roll back downhill. Another solution is to deploy back-up sources such as hydro-power or green hydrogen (nuclear power is often mentioned as a potential back-up source too, although I argued against that in a previous blog post). AI can also be used to help balance supply and demand.

One reason often given by the government to explain why more onshore wind farms have not been built is objections from local residents. But this obviously does not apply to offshore wind farms. In short, all the excuses made by politicians for not building more wind farms, or investing in renewable energy more generally, are just that: excuses. These excuses make little sense when renewables provide a cheap, clean source of energy that can easily meet our energy needs. So what’s really going on here? The real reason the government is so reluctant to invest in renewable energy sources is not that they aren’t effective: on the contrary, it is that they are too effective! To understand why this is, we need to understand something fundamental about how capitalism works.

In order to make money under capitalism, you need to control something that other people need but which is in short supply. This explains why it is so easy for capitalists to make money out of fossil fuels. Capitalist society has been set up in such a way that everyone needs access to these fuels, but they are difficult to get hold of as they are buried deep underground. If a cheap source of energy became freely available it would be much more difficult for capitalists to control the supply and thereby make money out of it. This explains why capitalists and their politician lackeys are so reluctant to invest in renewable energy. Instead, they resort to lying about their achievements in cutting emissions to deflect attention away from their lack of action. We will never solve the climate crisis until we get rid of capitalism.