Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. Jason W. Moore. Verso. 2025.

A decade after its first publication in 2015, Capitalism in the Web of Life still offers one of the most powerful frameworks for rethinking the relation between capitalism, ecology, and history. It conducts a world-historical investigation of how bundles of human and extra-human natures shape subsequent phases of capitalist development.

From Cartesian dualism to a world ecology

One of the main claims in this 305-page book is that we need to abandon the usual division between “Society” and “Nature”, established at the dawn of modernity (especially with the work of René Descartes)thus structuring much of contemporary, mechanistic science. In Part I of the book, Moore writes that seeing Nature as external is a fundamental condition of capital accumulation. Without the objectification of nature (including women and slaves), and its reconceptualisation as a mere stock of work/energy, centuries-long ecocide would be unthinkable. Capitalism does not act on nature as if they were separate worlds that only collide. Capitalism unfolds through nature – the creative, generative, and multi-layered relation of species and environment.” Human organisation becomes not only a producer but also a product of environmental change. This deep ontological rethinking resonated in the work of new critical thinkers, e.g. Jason Hickel or Kohei Saito (whose more accessible writing styles have enabled them to resonate with larger readerships).

This is the basis of Moore’s key concept of “world ecology” as a method to analyse nature’s relationality. This way he offers a post-Cartesian worldview of capitalism as a dialectical unity of capital accumulation, the pursuit of power, and the co-production of nature. “Capitalism is not an economic system; it is not a social system; it is a way of organizing nature” (2).

That shift in perspective is one of the book’s great strengths. Cartesian dualism, Moore writes, is driving our interpretations of historical change into a choice between social reductionism or environmental determinism. Mainstream environmentalism tends to treat nature as a stock of resources, and mainstream social theory still treats capitalism as if it were mainly about markets, classes, industry, or finance. Moore challenges both views, showing that the history of capitalism is inseparable from the remaking of forests, fields, bodies, frontiers, trade routes, energy systems, and global divisions of labour.

Capitalism and Cheap Nature

Moore’s central concept is “Cheap Nature”, which describes capitalism’s long dependence on appropriating undervalued or unpaid work/energy from humans and the rest of nature. Besides appropriation, capitalism has to capitalise (exploit) paid work/energy; but if it is to survive, the first process must unfold faster than the latter.

Capitalists do not like to pay for what they take, which is demonstrated in female unpaid housework, the oil as accumulated geological labour of Earth, and depeasantisation (pushing small-scale farmers into market labour).This preference requires them to drive the real costs of production (beyond paid proletarian work) as low as possible. Cheap Nature is the invention of a civilisation premised on dualism, comprising key inputs such as labour, raw materials, energy, and food (Moore and Patel later expanded this intuition).

To restore the flow of cheap inputs, capitalists, in conjunction with states, seek new configurations of human and extra-human natures. This is inherent to the history of capitalism

In Part II, Moore offers a historical periodisation of capitalism’s emergence, tracing how early capitalism took shape through frontier expansion, agrarian transformation, imperial power, and new forms of appropriating unpaid work/energy from the agricultural revolution of the Low Countries from the early 15th century onwards. This long historical arc gives the book much of its explanatory force. Capitalism is not an ahistorical economic process but a historically evolving configuration of human and extra-human natures.

That means nature is constitutive of capital accumulation. Capitalism’s recurring crises are tied to its dependence on new streams of cheap inputs. Once Cheap Nature becomes dear, problems emerge: the system is struggling to reproduce the conditions that made its own expansion possible. To restore the flow of cheap inputs, capitalists, in conjunction with states, seek new configurations of human and extra-human natures. This is inherent to the history of capitalism: from the enclosure of the commons in England and the enslavement of indigenous peoples in the “New World” (cheap labour), through plantation production in the colonies (cheap food) to the supply of oil from distant continents (cheap raw materials).

World-systems thinking

The book has a strong intellectual architecture. Besides Marx as clearly the central reference point, Moore is drawing on a wider tradition of historical and critical thought including world-systems analysis and the longue durée tradition associated with thinkers such as Immanuel Wallerstein, Giovanni Arrighi and Andre Gunder Frank. From them comes Moore’s insistence that capitalism must be grasped historically, globally, and relationally rather than substantially. Rejecting both conventional Green thought and poststructuralist theory as well as Latourian actor-network thinking, Moore’s work is underpinned with the same question: not how does capitalism act on nature, but how does it manage to put nature to work.

These observations explain why Moore has become one of the most prominent advocates of the term “Capitalocene” against the more dominant “Anthropocene.” His point is not merely semantic. As he writes in Part III of the book, the Anthropocene discourse attributes planetary crisis to humanity in general, while Capitalocene directs attention to capital as the world-ecological relation.

The crisis of falling ecological surplus

This relation brings us closer to the key message of the book: the crisis of capitalism is a crisis of “diminishing ecological surplus”. Ecological surplus is the foundation of the capitalist civilisational regime, and its core is Cheap Nature. It is how capital prevents the mass of capital from rising too fast in relation to the mass of appropriated nature (191).

The ecological surplus – the relative contribution of unpaid work to capital accumulation – can decline for several reasons: due to class struggle; the rise of environmental movements across the world; mechanised, monoculture agriculture with its increasingly toxic inputs; and, perhaps most obviously, the depletion of energy and mineral resources. Although with geographical variations, Moore writes that from 2003 onwards we witness the simultaneous rise in prices of all four inputs – labour, food, energy, and raw materials.

Moore’s concepts are striking and illuminating, but they sometimes operate at a level of abstraction that leaves the reader craving more empirical grounding.

Though brilliant, Capitalism in the Web of Life is intensely theoretical, arguably to a fault. Moore’s concepts are striking and illuminating, but they sometimes operate at a level of abstraction that leaves the reader craving more empirical grounding. But maybe Moore’s ambition is inseparable from his book’s central tension: its power lies in its attempt to build a unified account of capitalistic environment-making through history, but consequently some earlier critiques of Cartesian dualism tend to disappear from his retrospective.

Reconstruction of value is one of the book’s major achievements, especially where it connects Marxist-feminist insights on unpaid reproductive labour with the appropriation of unpaid work and energy from extra-human natures. But the scale of the theoretical claim occasionally comes at the expense of fuller engagement with nearby interlocutors and alternative vocabularies. In a 2025 essay Moore confirmed his commitment to this level of conceptual generalisation, which gives his work coherence and polemical force.

Changing the terms of the debate

“Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself,” said Native American leader and activist Chief Seattle in the mid-19th century, illustrating the arrogance of modern science. In fact, as biologists suggest, we humans live only a few moments of evolutionary time; and we play games in which we and our mechanical toys are the main characters in an infantile fairy tale called the Anthropocene. But our civilisational model is exhausting, as global warming evidences.

Capitalism in the Web of Life has become a contemporary classic. Moore’s subsequent reflections show less a revision than a sharpening of this original wager.

In this sense, Capitalism in the Web of Life has become a contemporary classic. Moore’s subsequent reflections show less a revision than a sharpening of this original wager. But what’s demanding is rewarding: Moore offers us a powerful framework for understanding the deep roots of planetary breakdown, as well as for understanding why the future seems even bleaker. His work is (somewhat depressingly) even more relevant now, as it becomes ever clearer that capitalism’s expansion will always involve intolerable violence against the web of life we are part all part of.

This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Benjamin Selwyn will speak about the book at an event hosted by LSE Department of International Development on Wednesday 18 March 2026 find details and register to attend.

Capitalist Value Chains: Labour Exploitation, Nature Destruction, Geopolitics. Benjamin Selwyn and Christin Bernhold. Oxford University Press. 2025.

Capitalist value chains

From the onset of globalisation (around the late 1970s to the early 1980s), global production has increasingly been organised across borders. Large transnational corporations (TNCs) have emerged organising transnational production in what is frequently referred to as Global Value Chains (GVCs). A new book by Benjamin Selwyn and Christin Bernhold critiques the existing literature on GVCs, arguing that they don’t deliver on their promise of prosperity for workers and the planet.

The exploitation of human labour and expropriation of nature are both regarded as essential for capitalist accumulation

Selwyn and Bernhold’s key contribution is that they locate their analysis of transnational production within what Karl Marx referred to as the “hidden abode of production”. Thus, instead of GVCs, they coin the term “Capitalist Value Chains” (CVCs), defined as “historically specific configurations of [international] capitalist class relations that contribute to heightened exploitation of labour and appropriation of nature by capital” (6). Their analysis is based on a detailed understanding of Marxist political economy and the way exploitation is increased through a combination of absolute and relative surplus extraction within CVCs (24). “Under capitalism,” they write, “economic growth is driven forward by capital’s insatiable and never-ending demand for profit rather than for human or environmental need” (230). By this logic, the exploitation of human labour and expropriation of nature are both regarded as essential for capitalist accumulation.

Exploiting workers and the environment

Selwyn and Bernhold’s second major contribution is their focus on the plight of workers. In an impressive range of empirical examples throughout the volume, they demonstrate how working people are losing out in CVCs. Key here is their notion of immiserating growth regimes, where corporations profit because “workers do not earn sufficient wages in a normal working day to sustain their and their family’s social reproduction costs” (134). Rather than enabling development, CVCs cause widespread poverty, the authors maintain. Importantly, they go beyond the World Bank’s international poverty line and in line with the Asia Floor Wage to focus on a living wage, which also includes, for example, access to health services and education in addition to a minimum wage (135).

Third, Selwyn and Bernhold excel at highlighting the causal dynamics underpinning relentless environmental destruction due to the expansion of capitalism through CVCs: “CVC hyper-specialization entails an increase in production, transportation, and energy use – accelerating climate breakdown and mass environmental ruin” (206). Savings due to new technologies will only increase investment and accumulation due to capitalist competition, resulting in yet further environmental destruction, they argue. By revealing this process, Selwyn and Bernhold successfully debunk the myth that an expansion of CVCs would help to address the ecological crisis (218).

Capitalism’s ever-larger crises

As impressive conceptually and empirically this volume is, it does have some arguable shortcomings. First, CVCs have driven the transnationalisation of production, which in turn has underpinned the emergence of transnational capital as leading class fraction at the global level. And yet, the authors portray TNCs such as Apple or Microsoft simply as US capital, being increasingly challenged by Chinese CVCs, i.e. Chinese capital. Thus, the authors risk falling into a state-centric trap in their analysis of transnational capital, conflating particular class fractions with specific states. Yes, states such as the US, Japan and China have facilitated the transnationalisation of ‘their’ large corporations (89, 111). The strategic considerations of these TNCs have, however, outgrown their initial home country setting.

Second, the authors overlook the structuring conditions of the capitalist social relations of production, especially the way capitalism is prone to crises. Together, their rather state-centric approach to CVCs, as well as their choice to disregard capitalism’s tendency towards crisis have significant implications for their understanding of geopolitics. Capital is presented as all-powerful and almost completely dominant at the very moment when increasing geo-political conflicts tear at its very structure. The Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Israeli-US attack on Iran and the numerous tariff wars incited by the US are all signs of a global capitalism steeped in crisis. The book was completed in 2024, but some of these developments were already apparent then.  

A heightened level of state intervention underpins the current, volatile global geo-political environment, characterised by trade wars and military conflicts.

William Robinson’s analysis of global capitalism’s crisis provides an explanatory corrective here. Robinson illustrates well how, against the background of a declining rate of profit, global capitalism has become engulfed in a crisis of overaccumulation. As companies increasingly struggle to find profitable investment opportunities for their record profits, he points out that “since 1980, uninvested corporate cash holdings have ballooned to 10 per cent of GDP in the United States, 22 per cent in Western Europe, 34 per cent in South Korea, and 47 per cent in Japan”.

Increasing state intervention

As it is the role of states as nodal points in the global political economy to ensure the continuation of capitalist accumulation, more and more governments around the world are intervening into the economy not only trying to ensure the fortunes of “their” particular capitalist class fractions, as Selwyn and Bernhold may argue, but even more importantly to attract investment by transnational capital. In other words, when analysing the internal relations between global capitalism and international geopolitics, we have to focus on the way and the degree to which the interests of transnational capital have become internalised within various state forms. Even the US has to work hard to ensure capital investment and to date it is doubtful to what extent it will be successful at securing some reshoring of manufacturing by corporations such as Apple. Ultimately, it is this heightened level of state intervention which underpins the current, volatile global geo-political environment, characterised by trade wars and military conflicts.

A must-read for everyone interested in how the latest phase of capitalism is pushing humanity and the planet towards the brink.

The authors’ argument that “China has evolved from the workshop of CVCs, via technological innovation, to become a challenger to increasing numbers of US high-tech CVC firms” (112) is also debatable. By contrast, Sam King argues that it is especially the “grip over the high-end of the labour process” – in particular over microchips – that the United States is now wielding against China in the “trade war,’” which indicates China’s continuing subordinate position. Moreover, capitalism’s internal contradictions and related crisis tendency have affected China too, reflected in ballooning banking assets looking for profitable investment opportunities, out of control household and corporate debt levels and “a slowdown in growth rates; and social polarization.” China’s Belt and Road initiative is also a vehicle of creating profitable investment opportunities to counter its own crisis of overaccumulation. Ultimately, only the future can tell whether China will be able to catch up or not.

These criticisms should not, however, be read as dismissing the huge contributions of this book for illuminating the ways CVCs work to the detriment of workers and the environment. The book is a must-read for everyone interested in how the latest phase of capitalism is pushing humanity and the planet towards the brink.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Nomadic Indigenous Peoples and the Law: Self-Determination, Land Rights and Gender Justice in India. Indrani Sigamany. Routledge. 2026.

Law and historical injustice

Considering the layered history of development-induced displacement in India from the colonial times to today, one can situate Indigenous groups (Adivasis) firmly on the other side of development. Although people belong to tribe now comprise less than eight per cent of the population, they make up 40 to 50 per cent of the communities who are displaced. Among these are mobile and nomadic indigenous communities who are more vulnerable, as their mobility patterns are at odds with the governmentality of the state. Conservation policies (like the Forest Act of 1927 and the Forest Conservation Act of 1980) are most often at odds with the rights of persons inhabiting these forests, and other factors come into play within tribal groups, such as gender.

The book departs from other works that centre formal legal recognition by focusing on mobile and nomadic communities, who are often overlooked.

It is these nuances that Indrani Sigamany’s book Nomadic Indigenous Peoples and the Law try to unravel. Her work is situated between three main scholarly conversations: first, global Indigenous land rights and law (see Anghie, 2023; Mutua and Anghie, 2000); forest law and Adivasi dispossession in India (see Gadgil and Guha, 1992; Galanter, 1968); and feminist political ecology (see Agarwal, 1992; Xaxa, 2004). The book departs from other works that centre formal legal recognition by focusing on mobile and nomadic communities, who are often overlooked. Sigamany employs a critical theory approach and an Indigenous-positionality approach, with a deep engagement with the Forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006. The book argues that advancing substantive rights is crucial, but access to justice is mediated by other factors like administrative injustice.  

Chapter one undertakes an evolution of forest-based legislation from colonial to post independence times focusing on how these acts transformed common forest lands into state property and criminalised shifting cultivation practices. These legislative actions have had a devastating impact on indigenous communities. Sigamany points to the inconsistency of, and contradiction between, the growing international legal instruments on Indigenous rights and land laws (for example, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People 2007), and the national experience of tribal and indigenous communities (54). The author argues that although the FRA was enacted to undo the “historical injustice,” its implementation is fraught with administrative barriers, legal incompatibilities, and political tensions, which ultimately limit the transformative potential of the act. Thus, she questions whether the promise of justice is being realised through FRA, and whether administrative justice delivers for indigenous communities. Chapter one traces the historical trajectory of forest-based laws, and the proceeding chapters probe how these manifest in the experiences of the mobile communities. 

Is all land god’s land? 

Mobile indigenous peoples, who are usually pastoralists move with their herds through specific grazing corridors, and these corridors may not agree with the boundaries of the nation-state. Maldhari herders of Mera district, Gujarat (“Mal” means livestock and “Dhari” means owner) migrated through Afghanistan in the past, but after independence, they were limited to the borders of India and thus, their usufruct rights (the right to use and enjoy communal lands for the grazing of the herds) shrank. Being nomadic, they do not own any land; they have a saying that “all land is god’s land”, rejecting ideas of individual property ownership.  

Maldharis conventionally had a communal way of living. But these traditional practices were nearly eliminated with the coming of the dairy development initiative, the White Revolution in 1970. Their grazing lands also shrank due to sale of gauchar (pastoral) lands by the government to the private individuals and industries and violations by private individuals. All these losses of lands also had a gendered consequence, as it increased the workload of Maldhari women. For example, women now have the new task to gather fodder in addition to cooking and laundry. Women also lost the control of marketing the milk produce because of the encroaching dairy cooperative, thus losing their economic independence. Sigamany then looks at the Dhangar pastoralists of Ahmednagar, Maharashtra and illuminates how the economic foundations of their pastoral life were altered because of erosion of gauchar lands integration into capitalist markets.  

Traditional gairan (grazing fields) were re-allocated to private individuals and industries by the government, giving meagre compensation to those who were displaced.

Traditional gairan (grazing fields) were re-allocated to private individuals and industries by the government, giving meagre compensation to those who were displaced. The Government also declared their grazing field an Indian conservation area. These case studies expose India’s neoliberal capitalist system, in which the needs of the economic elite supersede those of tribal communities left marginalised and unprotected by the state (84). Only some take a legal route to assert their land rights, with many barriers to accessing the required knowledge and resources. Maldharis favoured political action, but Dhangars were introduced to the necessary legislation by an NGO (85), and the book reveals the key role of NGO support in seeking redress.  

Nomadic women and struggles for self-determination

Chapter three problematises the gender within Indigenous communities, arguing that tribal women face double discrimination of being tribal and female within an oppressive patriarchal culture. Whenever there is a threat to forest-based livelihood and loss of lands, it is experienced more acutely by women, as their productive and reproductive roles are closely interlinked with forest lands. Based on the case studies of Raika camel herders and settled Adivasi Forest community of Bhasla of southern Rajasthan (87), where active struggles for their lands were led by women, Sigamany unpacks the dichotomy of dual representation of women as victims and of women in control of their lives.

Chapter four attempts to broaden the frame by bringing in self-determination of tribal communities. By taking the examples of people who make a living from producing tendu patta (a type of cigarette) and their struggle against displacement, Sigamany shows how legislation is used to access justice. She showcases, how through NGO support and mobilisation, communities tried and succeeded to gain control over the tendu trade and transitioned from labourers to owners via a cooperative model. Similarly, in Amba village, communities were threatened with displacement when a survey order was passed which could change the status of and prohibit them from inhabiting it. The process became important as Gram Sabha (the general governing body of Gram Panchayat, a basic governing institution in Indian villages) participation was undermined and free prior and informed consent (FPIC) was not taken. The author terms this an example of “administrative injustice”. The lack of commitment by the administration has harmed forest communities and has ultimately complicated the use of legal mechanisms for forest rights (137). 

Can rights-based frameworks coexist with market-led growth?

Sigamany’s book is an excellent critical reflection on the debates surrounding mobile indigenous peoples and their land rights, illuminating the contested nature of justice and how it is negotiated at ground level, either politically or legally. However, there are some areas which merit reflection. For example, can rights-based frameworks coexist with market-led growth? There are also questions that arise from the tensions between collective rights of the indigenous communities and individuality of women. For example, while collective land titles are seen as an emancipatory response, they can also reproduce internal and gendered hierarchies regarding participation in decision making and control over resources. 

Nevertheless, her scholarship stimulates us to broaden our horizon regarding access to justice via rights-based frameworks and most importantly, it rejects the binary framing of laws as being either futile or emancipatory. As she argues, substantive rights like FRA are a welcome tool to secure legal redress for land violations, but it must be strengthened with other factors like administrative justice. This book will appeal to scholars and students of gender studies, human rights law and Indigenous studies, and it invites further research on the intersection of justice, mobility, and conservation governance.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years. Sunil Amrith. Penguin Books. 2025 (paperback) 2024 (e-book).

Today, Earth is a burning planet. And yet, human societies’ relationship to changing ecologies is not something new. If environmental history “begins in the belly”, as the old saying goes, Sunil Amrith’s book only further demonstrates that our relationship with nature – how we eat, live, and breath – has always been the driving force of political, social, and cultural change. As a historian of transnational migration in Southeast Asia, Amrith presents a series of networked vignettes indebted to thinking within the Anthropocene, or what Dipesh Chakrabarty describes as the collapse of age-old distinctions between human and natural history. He moves, almost theatrically, from meditations on Mongol horsemanship to the Black Death; from the Bengal Bay to the transatlantic slave trade; and from the First World War to chemical warfare in Vietnam, India, and China. In this way, he shows how the motion and movement of changing ecologies reshaped ideas about freedom across time and space, and underpinned conquest, empire, and the emergence of new visions of human life.

Seeds of change

The first part examines how ecologies shaped medieval and early modern worlds. Amrith moves from the Mongol Empire to Ming China, the Russian steppe, and the Iberian conquest of the Americas. The mines of Potosí, Bolivia are a recurring image: silver extracted in the Andes, refined with mercury, and funnelled into global trade networks transformed demography, ecology, and economies across continents. China’s demand for silver to pay taxes connected Iberian conquests to Ming fiscal policy and, crucially, gave claims to power an ecological foundation: “As the ecological basis of China’s power and wealth came under strain from the length of the growing seasons [and] the soundness of flood defenses, it is no surprise that the mandate of heaven, the Ming dynasty’s right to rule, teetered” (57-58). Smallpox, the Columbian Exchange, and the transformation of forests into furnaces for refining ore all appear as ecological processes that underwrote empire.

Land and labour reconfigurations helped naturalise racial hierarchies and legitimise slavery, linking environmental change to the ideological birth of racial capitalism.

Following the ecological provocations of David Graber and David Wengrow, Amrith shows how these transformations were intertwined with new justifications for hierarchy and human exceptionalism. Likewise, land and labour reconfigurations helped naturalise racial hierarchies and legitimise slavery, linking environmental change to the ideological birth of racial capitalism. Sovereignty, he suggests, depended on ecological conditions, whether in food supply, flood control, or labour organisation. Likewise, the Atlantic slave trade is presented as a multispecies tragedy: “So violent were the floating prisons that their impact reverberated across species. Sharks followed slave ships, hungry for the broken bodies that would be thrown overboard” (71). This is one of the book’s most powerful images, demonstrating how the quest for cheap things becomes legible, not simply from an ecological bird’s-eye view of, for example, sugar extraction in Madeira.

Technological innovation reshaped landscapes as profoundly as armies did, and imperial violence and animal slaughter are treated as parallel acts of mastery over nature.

Equally, Amrith traces these entanglements through early modern political thought. Hobbes’s claim that “the NUTRITION of a Commonwealth consisteth in the plenty and distribution of materials conducing to life” (8), Bacon’s vision of making nature a “slave” (84), and Jefferson’s notion of liberty arising from the “spontaneous energies” of the earth and its gifts (91) are all interpreted as ways of framing human freedom through the remaking of non-human nature. Where others have looked at the “death of nature” from the perspective of feminism, or as a the conceptual problem of the “free gift” as a social form, Amrith demonstrates how Enlightenment attitudes have a much longer duration history of ecological entanglement with empire.

Breaking the chains

The second part examines the 19th and early 20th centuries, which Amrith calls the “chasm of freedom” (111). In settler colonies, freedom often meant unbounded land acquisition and mobility, with little regard for Indigenous land claims. Across the US, Russia, India, and China, ecological reconfigurations in grain markets, cattle expansion, refrigeration, and fossil-fuel use were central to new visions of liberty and life. Technological innovation reshaped landscapes as profoundly as armies did, and imperial violence and animal slaughter are treated as parallel acts of mastery over nature. While Amrith appears to be following Pierre Charbonnier and the fraught imperial legacy of the relationship between freedom and abundance, the extent to which these long ecological underpinnings might make the concept politically problematic remain quite vague. Still, Amrith establishes the gap between freedom as a horizon of expectation and those experiences of imperial conquest, slavery, and war – all mediated by our relation to nature, or more politically stated, our ecologies of freedom.

The First World War appears as “not only an imperial, but also an ecological catastrophe. It slaughtered animals, devoured forests, feasted on minerals, and left its poisonous trace in soils that remained toxic more than a century later” (162-163). Here, Amrith figures the global dimensions of this war, and how it required a global ecology. In what feels like the heart of the book, “Nitrogen Nightmares” (Chapter seven), interweaves stories about this new, global ecology that set the Great War in motion. On the one hand, we have a familiar story about the invention of synthetic nitrogen by Fritz Haber and the promise of technology to feed a hungry world. On the other, we see the environmental reverberations of chemical warfare in the eyes of Russian, Senegalese, and Indian soldiers. Amrith’s use of images to support his vignettes is brilliant, using art as a window into the experience of wartime destruction and its environmental underpinnings.

Hydroelectric dams and other mega-development projects are used to think through the Janus-faced nature of emancipation, as these projects often generated ecological dilemmas.

The Second World War similarly illustrates how struggles over resources and space (“Lebensraum”) in Germany and Japan reflect fears of ecological limits. Instead of thinking these movements as “stages” or “ages”, Amrith instead considers how “planetary power beyond comprehension” (207) builds upon much longer traces and legacies of ecological entanglement across empires. This is a great strength of Amrith’s writing: he resists Eurocentric narration by showcasing the ecological shockwaves of events placed in a global context. And yet, the political implication of his bricolage remains unclear, perhaps intentionally. He mentions the pathbreaking work of Andreas Malm and the rise of fossil capital and discusses what Timothy Mitchell frames as remaking of our carbon-based democracy. But the extent to which Amrith believes his narration of the ecological underpinnings of freedom bend towards a potentially class-oriented form of politics (as suggested by the many working-class testimonies) is not made explicit.

The human exception

The third part, 1945-2025, links freedom to the ecological transformations of the postwar world. Anticolonial leaders like Sukarno, Ho Chi Minh, Ambedkar, and Nehru are mobilised as touchstones to think critically about how freedom came to be seen as the “sovereign control over the products of nature” (216). Here, hydroelectric dams and other mega-development projects are used to think through the Janus-faced nature of emancipation, as these projects often generated ecological dilemmas. Readers may enjoy “The Human Condition” (Chapter 10), in which Amrith juxtaposes Hannah Arendt, Rachel Carson, and Indira Gandhi to trace the rise of postwar environmentalism, the Green Revolution, and the globalisation of climate change. He notes that environmentalists brought “a multiplicity of aims and tactics and a breadth of utopian visions” (297), but whether Amrith deems any of them useful remains an open question.

How does one “conclude” such a bricolage of open-ended stories and moving images from which to make ecology legible? Amrith does by navigating Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece Princess Mononoke to emphasise that what is needed are “roads to repair”. While one cannot disagree, there is something lofty about stating that “the struggle ahead is to remember and to integrate our creatureliness into new visions of human flourishing on earth. Only then can we regain our freedom” (348). If political theory is a precondition for writing history, then we may be left wondering what kind of politics leads to this freedom? Despite these uncertainties, The Burning Earth offers a compelling reorientation of global history, insisting that any vision of emancipation must reckon with the material webs that have always sustained and imperilled human life.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Radical Abundance: How to Win a Green Democratic Future. Kai Heron, Keir Milburn and Bertie Russell. Pluto Press. 2025.

In our time of polycrisis, the literature about a more equal and sustainable world grows. Among many accounts of the current state of affairs and desirable visions of the future – from Zeitgeist movement to the “alternative hedonism” – few of them deal with what is to be done here and today. Radical Abundance comes as a notable exception, offering practical steps to a post-capitalist future, 

Bullshit jobs, and everything else 

“The authors set the scene from the outset: “We live in a world of bullshit abundance. A world where we have too much of what we don’t need and too little of what we do.” Frequently using the word “bullshit”, the authors seem to be implicitly continuing David Graeber’s analysis of the nebulousness of white-collar jobs; however, this is a more extensive, materialistic analysis of both production and consumption. Radical Abundance  begins with the authors presenting capitalism as a dialectic between the abundance of bullshit and artificial scarcity. By this they mean that, on the one hand, there is too much of what is harmful – microplastics, traffic congestion, carbon emissions – as well as consumer choice. 

The mirror image of capitalism’s bullshit abundance, radial abundance names a world where everyone has what they need to live and flourish

On the other hand, there is too little of what is needed: decent job opportunities, access to a healthy diet and environment, infrastructure, even of time itself, (see Hartmut Rosa‘s detailed analysis), which harms people and nature. It is not an inevitable scarcity, but one imposed on some people for the economic benefit of others. The entire book, and especially the first of its two parts, explains the inseparability of bullshit abundance and artificial scarcity. This inseparability occurs in almost every market: “Under capitalism our lives are diminished and our access to the fruits of our collective labour restricted” (3). 

From imposed scarcity to radical abundance 

If bullshit abundance is the thesis, what is the antithesis? The “radical abundance” of the book’s title. As “the mirror image” of capitalism’s bullshit abundance, it names a world where everyone has what they need to live and flourish. “Instead of bullshit abundance of pollutants, traffic jams, and greenhouse gases, radical abundance regenerates ecosystems and pursues reparations for peoples – usually racialised, Indigenous, and working class – who have had their lands stolen, polluted, or turned into zones of extraction” (15). 

True change can never be delivered by capitalist means, the authors contend, hence their choice of the word “radical” which distinguishes the book from Abundance, written by liberal advocates of cosmetic changes to the system. Its key word is “transition”. In Chapter Two, the authors present the historical context and a theory of transition, drawing from Marxist thinkers such as the economist Michael A. Lebowitz, sociologist Marta Harnecker and philosopher István Mészáros. This theoretical context  is essential to understand why the challenge of transition, as the authors argue, partly overlooked by the Left (Green New Deal, degrowth economies, half-earth socialism, etc.). 

Those who have benefitted from the status quo have constructed both theory and practice of transition that ensures nothing will fundamentally change. Heron, Milburn and Russell differ, presenting concisely the theory and prerequisites for the transition, as well as the institutional form to support it. 

Necessary features of a transition 

The authors argue that overthrowing capitalism is not enough; we need to abolish capital as a relationship, as a system based on the imperative of accumulation. This, after all, is why the USSR collapsed: the failure to “outcapitalise” the capitalists, instead of devising alternative, non-capitalist relations between humans and nature. The book calls for collective democratic participation, through processes of democratic social and ecological planning. Granted, transition is difficult, uncertain and dependent on geographical, historical and social context. Nevertheless, there are “invariant” features of transition, regardless of time and space.  

Democratic participation and planning constructs popular “protagonism” – a new, powerful collective agent and the first invariant feature of transition. Popular, because it is exercised by the working/popular classes in their differentiated unity: workers in industry, services, unwaged workers, peasants, and so on. The essence here is that emancipation of the working classes must be led by the working classes themselves. This must be done by learning through acting, and by building institutional forms.  

From the idea that transition is a period in which incompatible and antagonistic social metabolisms (socio-economic formations) coexist and collide stems the second prerequisite for transition – contested reproduction. This is a democratically planned production, determined by the associated producers, which is not based on the logic of capital. The purpose is to gradually replace capital’s metabolic control with a shared metabolic system.  

The most pressing problems of our time are secular stagnation (the stubbornly low rate of economic growth) and global warming. Both stem from a pernicious relationship between the state and private capital

The authors point out the mistakes of numerous mass mobilisations after 2008. Although they were progressive (Indignados), massive (Occupy Wall Street) or even part of the political milieu (Syriza), these projects have waned, without articulating political demands and/or building transformative institutions for the development of popular protagonism and contested reproduction. They point to five examples of the “institutionalization of the revolution” – the seeds from which greater forms of resistance can develop. None of them use the same conceptual language to organise their struggles, nor are they illustrative of an already formed and cohesive global movement. Yet from Hernani Burujabe’s experiments with radical planning in the Spanish Basque Country to Venezuela’s communes, as the authors write, all of which aim to drive “a shift from a culture in which citizens beg the state to solve their problems to a culture where citizens implement, control, and manage things themselves”. They call for this to be the objective and method of 21^st century socialism. 

From public-private to public-common partnerships 

The most pressing problems of our time are secular stagnation (the stubbornly low rate of economic growth) and global warming. Both stem from a pernicious relationship between the state and private capital, where states, using taxpayers’ money, subsidise and de-risk private companies’ investments. “The derisking state”, the authors state, “is defined by the practice of enlisting ’private capital’ into achieving public policy priorities by tinkering with risk/returns on private investments in sovereign bonds, currency, social infrastructure and, most recently, green industries.

If the state can derisk private capital, it could start derisking commons, instead.

This relationship – from British laborists’ securonomics to the American democrats’ Bidenomics – takes the form of public-private partnerships. Adverse economic and institutional consequences of these partnerships have been researched by Mariana Mazzucato. But where she sees the “entrepreneurial state” as a victim of private capital, the authors point to its complicity. The real victims of such insidious practices are citizens and nature. They argue that, if the state can derisk private capital, it could start derisking commons, instead. By combining mass mobilisation and concerted strategies, workers and citizens can convince them to do that. In the book’s second part, the authors sketch an institutional strategy to achieve this called “public-common partnership” (PCP). 

The last three chapters are dedicated to areas in which different forms of PCPs (as well as Joint Enterprises and Common Associations) have managed to take root: urban development, pharmaceuticals, and agriculture. The authors emphasise that PCPs are not universal solutions and do not represent a participatory mechanism for including civilians in the management of a public enterprise. Nor are they another model of modern-day cooperatives. They are a transitional, consciously directed and expansive movement of decommodification, which aims to bring an increasing proportion of our reproductive activity within a communal mode of provision.  

Undeniably, the challenge is great, and meeting it involves all of us “exhausted of the Earth“ taking action. In overemphasising employed workers, the book makes what might be its strongest point: PCPs are primarily the expression of a struggle over production. By suggesting the forms that cannot be incorporated into workplace and trade union activities, the authors avoid the risk of supporting subcultural political practice or spaces of economic otherness incapable of confronting capital’s control. Among many things we learn from this compelling guide, the most fundamental is the knowledge that we are all in one, indivisible class struggle.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Main image: The Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1565), open access courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Rogers Fund (1919).

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Organic Finance: Building a New Sustainable and Inclusive Framework from the Ground Up. Atul K. Shah. Routledge. 2025.

A vision for sustainable and socially responsible finance  

The metaphor “animal spirits” refers to the critical role of emotions, of “spontaneous optimism” over calculation, in driving the behaviour of economic agents. John Maynard Keynes introduced the term in the context of the Great Depression of 1929, contradicting the premise in neoclassical economics that rationality guides human decisions. Following Keynes, Nobel Prize-winning economists Akerlof and Shiller theorised it in developing behavioural economics and finance after the Global Financial Crisis of 2007.  

Shah’s concept of ‘Organic Finance’ aims to serve a sustainable socioeconomic future rather than an economy that promises unrealistic growth

Although the explanation of behaviour shifts from rationality in neo-classical economics to emotion in behavioural economics and finance, the agent remains the same: the selfish individual. For those of us seeking an alternative economic order, the question is: how do we replace the selfish individual in economics with a collective, socially and environmentally minded economic agency? The critical scholarly research after the 2007-2009 Global Financial Crisis highlighted the overlooked work of post-Keynesian macro economist Hyman Minsky who theorised the causes of financial instability in capitalism. New work, like that of Brett Christophers, Engelen et al. and Paul Langley, on the other hand, aimed to explain the crisis and the dysfunctionality of the existing financial system, rather than develop an alternative finance theory.  

How metaphors effect change 

Atul Shah’s new book Organic Finance is aware of the power of metaphors in changing theory, and delineates a list of them which could help to build a new, socially and ecologically responsible paradigm in finance. Shah uses the term “organic” to describe a financial system that connects to local economic and ecological needs at a time when “scientific” finance is failing spectacularly to serve both people and the planet. Shah’s concept of “Organic Finance” aims to serve a sustainable socioeconomic future rather than an economy that promises unrealistic growth, framed in quasi-scientific mathematical abstractions. He argues that building a globally sustainable finance will first require embracing “a taxonomy of different attitudes and beliefs about animals and nature”, and the importance of accounting for “vast diversity of finance cultures in the world” (151). 

Shah’s book is an invitation to think radically about transforming how we conceive of and practice finance, rather than merely moving around its furniture.

The key metaphors Shah uses are soil, seed, death and decay, and forests (of hope), with a chapter dedicated to each. Two further chapters, “ecosystem” and “inner growth”, integrate the key metaphors into a vision of a financial structure that serves society and the planet rather than financial elites. Shah weaves together the metaphors referencing the ecosystem of organic life in nature to argue that ethical finance is rooted in the soil of “faith, trust, relationships, community and culture” (34). It grows not into an individual forest for each society, he contends, but into forests of diverse practices of finance addressing local needs within societies. 

An alternative style for a bold message 

Arguably, the book over-relies on metaphoric language, like the “rivers nourishing mother earth, without charging a fee” (101). But Shah holds that such language helps to constitute a normative finance for nature and societies that contrasts with a purely profit-oriented model that dominates today. He purposefully adopts a subjective, passionate writing style to create a “soul” for his reasoning that goes “against the tide of positivism, empiricism and technical complexity for its own sake” (173). This approach means that the book will not appeal to everyone, even those who share its criticality of mainstream economics and finance. But the book is consciously intended for a general readership who would find the technical language of finance an obstacle. Shah’s goal is to free their reasoning to imagine an alternative financial system. For readers of an academic background, Shah’s book is an invitation to think radically about transforming how we conceive of and practice finance, rather than merely moving around its furniture. 

Shah knows the discipline well, giving weight to the book’s moralistic argument which might otherwise ring hollow. He offers practical advice on how finance should be taught in order to effect real change. He proposes teaching responsible leadership to finance students and introducing “debates and discussions with students and scholars from other departments like ecology or agriculture and forestry or theology…[to] … help break … the silos and enable students to see the wider depths and breadths of knowledge needed to tackle our environmental crises” (171). 

The challenges of “big idea” thinking 

Sometimes the passion that animates the arguments in the book leads to simplification. There are frequent instances in where the complexities in the history of capitalism and the history of money receive generalised judgements. For example, the book chooses not to explore the controversies in scholarly work on the assumed harmony in non-capitalist and faith societies. Shah gives examples both from the West and the East how religious and faith institutions historically have played significant role in the development of human knowledge. He highlights Jainism (28), a culture he knows well, as a good ethical model for social and environmental equity. But he does not problematise the social contestations and power relations that such faith-based organisations have been associated with. The book frames colonial power in economies, economics, moral values, and science as detrimental in history. But the socially oppressive local power dynamics in non-Western societies are not given due analytical and moral attention. In studying the supposedly egalitarian Bedouin society in the Middle East the anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod describes the complexity of social status and rights by age, gender, wealth and genealogy. 

Any attempt to transform mainstream finance must recognise the theoretical and practical difficulties and historical contingencies in building a radically new system.

Shah sometimes presents good and bad as black and white, without the shades in between that economic history and anthropology have studied. There is a gap, for example, around how his vision of ethical finance can be democratic in practice. How would ordinary people be involved in the creation of financial institutions and their regulation? Any attempt to transform mainstream finance must recognise the theoretical and practical difficulties and historical contingencies in building a radically new system. How would the metaphors in the book be translated into specific instruments for financial decision-making? Given that the ecological emergencies are global in nature, how would a global framework stemming from diversity in cultures be established to resolve them? 

An urgently needed overhaul of the financial system

As the ecological emergencies we face globally affect daily lives more regularly through devastating heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods, this book is a timely call to re-imagine how we live. The OECD’s latest annual report on the economic impact of climate change estimates a loss of 7 to 18 per cent in global GDP by 2050 if the 2015 Paris Agreement on carbon emissions is not met. The World Resources Institute (WRI) estimates that global wildfire activity could increase from 30 to 50 per cent over current levels by 2100 because of climate change. Our existing financial system, with its blatant epistemological and ethical weaknesses, cannot facilitate the radical change required to address the climate crisis. The book contributes significantly to the existing debates on the inadequacy of mainstream finance theory and practice, providing a compelling and imaginative alternative for its ethical transformation.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Main image: KENG MERRY Paper Art on Shutterstock.

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COP30 in Belém, Brazil is underway, the 30^th effort by states to come together and agree on how to tackle climate change and turn rhetoric into action. It also marks a decade since the landmark Paris Agreement, when governments around the world pledged to limit global warming to (ideally) 1.5°C. Yet, ten years on, the reality remains sobering: greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, fossil fuel subsidies endure, and those most vulnerable to climate harm remain the least protected. 

Now is an opportune moment to take stock, and to ask: why, despite the clarity of the science and the urgency of the crisis, do we continue to fail to act at the necessary scale and speed? The five books below are insightful, provocative works illuminating the moral, political, and historical dimensions of this crisis and the contours of the struggle for climate justice. Together, they identify different branches of climate injustice – from colonialism and capitalism to contemporary geopolitics – and offer lessons on how best to address the inequalities caused by the climate crisis. 

Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis. Tao Leigh Goffe. Hamish Hamilton. 2025. 

Many in the West see climate change as something that came to public attention in the late 1980s, amid growing concern about rising greenhouse gas emissions causing extreme weather events like droughts and heatwaves. Some socially conscious individuals may draw further links between these emissions and the Industrial Revolution that led to the extreme reliance on fossil fuels to power major economies. Tao Leigh Goffe’s Dark Laboratory is an effort to show that the origins of climate change go back much further. Her sweeping historical investigation shows how colonial extraction, plantation economies, and the legal and epistemic regimes developed around them produced not only imperial wealth, but also ecological forms of dispossession that echo into our climate present.

In reframing the Anthropocene as a continuation of colonial practices, Goffe positions climate justice as a form of historical redress. Within this framing, domestic emissions targets and carbon budgets alone cannot account for centuries of ecological debt. Instead, Goffe invites us to see climate action as a decolonial project – one that requires transforming not only economies but also systems of knowledge, memory, and belonging.

Chaos in the Heavens: The Forgotten History of Climate Change. Jean-Baptiste Fressoz and Fabien Locher. Translated from the French Gregory Elliott  by Verso. 2024. 

Amid growing concern about extreme weather events, politicians come together with leading scientists to identify the cause, discuss solutions and try to mitigate some of the damaging impacts of climate on society. Sound familiar? Except this is not 2025, this is revolutionary France. And like with the modern climate crisis, the damage caused to agriculture by weather events in 18th-century France exposed questions about social order, governance, and justice.

The consensus around net zero is fraying under populist backlash backed by the same fossil fuel interests that caused the climate crisis.

Through this journey into history, Fressoz and Locher show that past efforts to manage climate risk mirror the tensions we face today: how to balance economic stability with environmental limits, and how to ensure that vulnerable populations are not sacrificed in the name of progress. This recognition can help guide us in idenitfying why it is that humanity struggles to deal with climate change, and also a warning that instabilty in the Earth system can quickly extend into the political system without appropriate action.

White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism.  Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective. Verso. 2021. 

A common theme in global politics, and a key reason we struggle to make progress on climate action, is the rise of anti-climate populist parties. In one of the first attempts to unpack thesse linkages Andreas Malm explores how the far-right evolved from a nationalistic obsessions with ecological “purity” to its pathlogical defence of fossil fuels and efforts to link climate action with the “woke agenda.” Across Trump’s America, Bolsonaro’s Brazil, and Europe’s far-right movements, Malm and his collaborators at the Zetkin Collective show how narratives of race, sovereignty, and “the people” are mobilised to resist climate action and entrench extractivism. 

The book’s argument, made in 2021, has only grown more relevant. In the UK and elsewhere, the consensus around net zero is fraying under populist backlash backed by the same fossil fuel interests that caused the climate crisis. Malm’s analysis underscores how deeply climate politics are embedded in struggles over culture, identity, and democracy itself. For climate justice advocates, the book is both a warning and a guide: defeating the far right’s fossil fuel fascism requires not only technical decarbonisation, but a political project that links environmental repair to strong political narratives that meet the moment.

The Climate Diplomat: A Personal History of the COP Conferences. Peter Betts. Profile Books. 2025. 

Although less justice-focused than other recommendations, former UK climate diplomat Peter Bett’s account of the realities of climate diplomacy is essential reading for any climate justice advocate. Drawing on first-hand experience from successive COP summits, Betts exposes the difficulty of bringing nearly 200 nations each with divergent interests, vulnerabilities, and capacities around a table to agree on a single course of action.

The book offers critical insights into how diplomats engage with civil society, with Betts’ noting that the ability of grassroots movements and NGOs to shift the Overton window is a critical aspect of expanding the range of acceptable options permissible for states. What’s striking for climate justice activists is how little Betts engages with the day-to-day realities of climate injustice in the Global South. Although perhaps unsurprising given it was not his area of expertise, it is a useful reminder that what happens in the backrooms may not always reflect the clamour for equality occurring outside.  

At a time when trust in multilateralism is waning, this book reminds readers that though the slow, frustrating process of negotiation remains indispensable, climate justice advocates cannot leave it to diplomats to address the climate crisis.

The struggle for climate justice is not just about emissions. It is about history, power, and imagination – about who has benefited from the destruction of the Earth, who bears the costs, and who gets to decide what comes next.

Carbon Colonialism: How Rich Countries Export Climate Breakdown. Laurie Parsons. Manchester University Press. 2023. 

The final recommendation examines the dark side of the green transition.  Through ethnography and field work, Parsons shows how market-led responses to climate change can underwrite and conceal a continuation of the extractivist logic that underpinned some of the injustices discussed in the previous recommendations. With a particular focus on the exporting of production costs by the West to developing countries (and therefore both greenhouse gas emissions and the associated violations of human rights that come with poor models of manufacturing), Parsons reveals how the costs of the “green transition” are often borne by those least responsible for the crisis. The book’s central warning is stark: unless justice is made central to climate governance, we risk reproducing the same inequalities that created the crisis. 

In exposing these patterns, Parsons pushes us to think beyond carbon metrics and toward questions of power, ownership, and accountability. Like with other authors on this list, he suggests that the future must not only decarbonise but also decolonise to ensure justice and fairness for all.  

As COP30 unfolds, these books remind us that the struggle for climate justice is not just about emissions. It is about history, power, and imagination – about who has benefited from the destruction of the Earth, who bears the costs, and who gets to decide what comes next.

Note: This post gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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The Growth Story of the 21st Century: The Economics and Opportunity of Climate Action. Nicholas Stern. LSE Press. 2025.

In 2006, the United Kingdom government released the influential and controversial Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change. Led by Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of both the UK Treasury and the World Bank, the Review advocated for large-scale and immediate climate action, contradicting most economic analyses available at that time. The Review argued that conventional economic analysis paid insufficient attention to the well-being of future generations and ignored hard-to-predict but potentially disastrous consequences of changes in climate.  

Stern pitches his new book, The Growth Story of the 21st Century, as “The Stern Review 2.0”, arguing that the need for action is more urgent than ever, in part because too little action occurred in the twenty years since his original report. The book is framed around the “new growth story.” The word “story” here is essential – the main aim of the book is to put a more optimistic framing around arguments supporting the urgent need for large-scale action on climate. Stern is optimistic that it is feasible to simultaneously reduce emissions and promote economic development, and that there is the political will to do so.  

A more holistic view of growth 

A central tenet of Stern’s argument is that we should adopt a more holistic view of growth that incorporates poverty reduction, environmental sustainability and resilience to negative shocks, including those caused by changes in climate. Under this definition, addressing pressing environmental concerns necessarily promotes growth, regardless of what happens to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Indeed, since low-income countries and people are most vulnerable to changes in climate, addressing climate change is essential to promoting growth. Stern sees an international community that, aided by rapid technological progress in clean energy, is poised to make large investments needed to reduce emissions in developed economies and to simultaneously support development and decarbonisation in developing economies.. 

Despite laying out an optimistic case for the new growth story, he does not shy away from describing the massive investments needed to address the problem or the unavoidable trade-offs involved.

Stern’s book is most compelling when he stresses the urgency of near-term action. He carefully lays out the harms the changing climate will do to vulnerable populations, including decreased agricultural productivity, dangerous heatwaves, and increased flooding. He also stresses the promise of cheap clean technology to drastically reduce emissions, and the moral obligation of the world’s wealthy nations to aid poorer ones. Despite laying out an optimistic case for the new growth story, he does not shy away from describing the massive investments needed to address the problem or the unavoidable trade-offs involved. For example, he explains that ambitious climate policies will increase energy prices and decrease employment in fossil-fuel industries. He stresses the need to support those who are harmed by these policies – but not at the expense of forgoing action on climate. 

China’s key role in decarbonisation 

Stern’s most interesting statements about contemporary policy concern the role of China in the global economy and its dominance of clean energy industries, like solar panels and electric vehicles. Deployment of cheap clean energy technologies from China is essential to reducing emissions, especially in the near term. To build domestic capacity and reduce reliance on China, the United States and the European Union have taken steps, like imposing tariffs, to make Chinese clean energy technologies more expensive. Whatever the long-term benefits from reduced dependency that accrues to developed economies, it is vulnerable populations in developing countries that pay the greatest near-term cost from increased carbon emissions. He also notes how geopolitical tensions among the United States, the European Union, and China inhibit the international coordination necessary to drastically reduce emissions. 

Stern’s long-term arguments are largely compatible with the idea of degrowth, but made with the political savvy of a long-time insider to powerful institutions who wants to prompt immediate and large-scale action.

Stern’s long-term vision is somewhat unclear. He strenuously argues against the philosophy of degrowth. Yet, he repeatedly stresses the central tenet of the degrowth philosophy, that infinite growth is not possible on a finite planet, arguing that the “new growth story” is only a description of the next several decades. Indeed, his focus on poverty alleviation, sustainability, and resilience are all consistent with degrowth philosophies. Stern’s main complaint is levied against arguments for an outright decline in economic activity, rather than simply ending growth in GDP. His primary objection to the more general concept of degrowth appears to be the name. Consistent with the theme of the book, he worries that the term reduces support for active climate policies either by making them unpopular or distracting from the importance of continued decarbonisation. Stern’s long-term arguments are largely compatible with the idea of degrowth, but made with the political savvy of a long-time insider to powerful institutions who wants to prompt immediate and large-scale action.

Barriers to radical climate action 

I found Stern’s political optimism hard to square with contemporary observation. He highlights the 2015 Paris Agreement as both reflecting and propelling international coordination around decarbonisation. Many countries, however, are not on track to meet their commitments under the agreement, which has no enforcement mechanism anyway. Even if all countries did meet their individual commitments, the world still would not meet the overarching goals of the agreement. Relatedly, the book carefully lays out the large investments needed to decarbonise the economies of developing countries, highlighting the role of financial transfers from developed countries.

Rich countries have failed to meet previous financial goals and it isn’t clear why we should expect this to change in the future

As the book remarks, however, rich countries have failed to meet previous financial goals and it isn’t clear why we should expect this to change in the future. Written in the Spring of 2025, Stern notes the obvious political setback of Donald Trump’s election, but understandably underestimates the sweeping changes it would entail, such as the Administration’s plan to undermine the endangerment finding – the legal principle underpinning much US climate regulation. 

The political value of optimism 

An interested reader without a background in economics will learn much from this comprehensive discussion of the economics and politics of climate change and climate policy. Unlike the original Stern Review, this book does not provide new insights to economists working on climate. I didn’t always recognise the state of affairs Stern was criticising, in part because he underestimates how much it has moved towards his position. Motivated in large part by Stern’s work, most economists agree that climate policy should place high value on the wellbeing of future generations. Similarly, Stern chastises economists for ignoring the role of technological progress in addressing sustainability and for ignoring policies other than carbon taxes, but many papers in leading journals highlight both of these points. 

Stern’s main message about optimism is political: it is designed to help build political coalitions and spur immediate policy action. He makes a powerful argument for the importance of near-term action, but the political path to achieve this remains unclear.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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The Climate Diplomat: A Personal History of the COP Conferences. Peter Betts. Profile Books. 2025.

COPs and alternatives for climate cooperation 

The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is just days away. High-level ministers and less glorified negotiators will converge from around the world on the Amazonian city of Belém, in the Brazilian state of Pará, from 10 to 21 November. These COPs are the world’s premier forum for multilateral climate negotiations and have produced the likes of the seminal 1997 Kyoto Protocol (COP3) and the  2015 Paris Agreement (COP21).  

Peter Betts’ posthumous memoir, The Climate Diplomat, is a first-person chronicle of these momentous COP negotiations spanning two decades, from the perspective of a UK civil servant who became a top negotiator for the EU. In the aftermath of what Betts called a “traumatic” 2009 Copenhagen conference (COP15), marked by a breakdown in the multilateral process, he and several UK Civil Service teams together did some soul-searching. The UK weighed the pros and cons of different international arenas for climate action and came up with the following alternatives to the UNFCCC: A subset of countries instead of all the UN’s 195 – perhaps the G20. (“Such an option could only work – even in theory – with the use of sticks and sanctions for those outside the club,” Betts said.); Greater use of carrots and sticks, like tariffs on goods imported from high-emitting countries. This has come to pass in the form of Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms (CBAMs). Betts said there would be dangers of a trade war or other repercussions; And common standards in key sectors like steel or cement – though Betts believed this would either be met with strong resistance or would fail to be transformational.  

Dividing UNFCCC parties into “Global North” versus “Global South” masks critically important intra-group distinctions – and cross-purposes. Bluntly, the US is not the EU. China is not Trinidad and Tobago. 

“Our conclusion was that there was and is no viable alternative to securing serious action on climate through the UN, complemented by parallel action and cooperation in other fora and the use of different instruments,” he wrote. What, then, can The Climate Diplomat teach us about the multilateral UNFCCC process as the world heads into COP30?

One: The North-South divide is never so clean 

The book argues that dividing UNFCCC parties into “Global North” versus “Global South” masks critically important intra-group distinctions – and cross-purposes. Bluntly, the US is not the EU. China is not Trinidad and Tobago. Whereas the US has often played (at best) a cautious and (at worst) an obstructionist role at the COPs, the EU has mostly been an advocate for environmental ambition, pushing at COP28 for a fossil fuel phase-out and thwarting a carbon market deal that watchdogs criticised as lacking integrity. (However, the EU drew criticism at COP29 for failing to support adequate climate finance.) These stances have been met with opposition by some developing countries – particularly alliances of large emerging economies with Least Developed Countries where basic needs are still not met.

The critical distinction between China and Trinidad and Tobago is at least twofold: first, influential China is one of the world’s biggest emitters, whereas the small Caribbean nation of T&T has a negligible contribution. As a BRICS economic powerhouse versus a core member of the climate-ambitious Alliance of Small Island States, their interests are often at odds – even though they both belong to the broad “G77 plus China” negotiation group. 

Simultaneously, T&T is one of the world’s highest per-capita greenhouse gas emitters:  32 tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year in 2023 – a top-five figure – compared to China’s 10. But while emissions per capita might seem like the fairest way to allocate blame – or urge action, Trinidad and Tobago’s decarbonisation will hardly be a drop in the bucket of what is needed at global scale. A comparatively small policy change in China would be momentous. 

Two: National targets everywhere need scrutiny 

The Climate Diplomat chronicles how EU hopes in the 2000s that all countries would be bound to temperature-aligned standards of planning ultimately gave way to a compromise: the “nationally determined” nature of climate action. “[EU negotiators] reassured ourselves that, even though the UNFCCC would not develop any kind of fairness and adequacy framework, civil society would do so, and peer pressure would encourage those with manifestly weak targets to revisit them,” Betts wrote. “We were wrong about this”. 

Not all countries can be expected to contribute to the climate effort to the same extent, or in the same way. But since climate action is a global struggle, all governments must be held to account,

This reluctance to call out weak ambition frustrated Betts, though he acknowledged and upheld the UNFCCC principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” (CBDR-RC). Simply, this means that not all countries can be expected to contribute to the climate effort to the same extent, or in the same way. But since climate action is a global struggle, all governments must be held to account, he maintained.  

To this end, “stretch” targets – not the kind that countries would meet anyway, without added policy ambition – must become the norm. Also, civil society must not blind itself to the influence that high-income, high-polluting developing countries like the UAE wield at the talks, who justify their unambitious emissions reduction with rhetoric of fair and equitable development and CBDR-RC.  

Three: Finance matters 

Betts argued for a “substantial scaling-up in support from richer countries to emerging economies to enable them to make the transition to low carbon”. Certainly, international climate finance flows are critical to collective global action, and Betts noted a few areas of special concern: Higher cost of capital in the Global South, which can impede the adoption of green technologies; Funding for industrial decarbonisation, such as South Africa’s multilateral financing deal from COP26 – the world’s first Just Energy Transition Partnership; Overlooked adaptation finance opportunities.

But Betts only touched on the enormous scale of climate finance needed as opposed to the politics of who would pay, and how. He was also so disappointed with the diplomatic fallout of Copenhagen’s COP15 that he did not highlight the historic significance of the $100 billion goal: in 2009, a large group of wealthier (“Annex I“) countries agreed to mobilise $100 billion annually by 2020, at the latest. The OECD estimates that this target was eventually met around 2022.  

Climate finance has occupied a much larger place at the COPs than its ancillary coverage in the book might suggest, including at COP29, due to the deadline to negotiate a New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance. Absolute quantity of finance is also the push behind the $1.3 trillion “Baku to Belém Roadmap” published on 5 November 2025. No balance sheet optimisation at multilateral development banks or hefty loans can get around the need for large-scale, highly concessional climate finance; at some point, developing countries just need more money. 

 An engaging look behind the scenes at COP 

The Climate Diplomat is chock-full of dramatic first-hand anecdotes from years of multilateral negotiations and permeated with incisive observations about how personal relationships and informal fora set the stage for groundbreaking climate decisions.  

Demanding accountability can’t just mean critiquing emerging economies like China or Brazil. It must also compel developed country governments to pay their fair share in climate finance

Heading into COP30 in Belém, unpacking overly simplistic narratives around North and South, as the book does, and holding all governments to account – within a fair frame of reference, and with proportionate responsibility – remains important. The incoming Brazilian COP presidency has, for example, supported policy positions at home and abroad that privilege nature-based climate solutions like the Tropical Forests Forever Facility while expanding fossil fuel exploration. 

But demanding accountability can’t just mean critiquing emerging economies like China or Brazil. It must also compel developed country governments to pay their fair share in climate finance at highly concessional rates – preferably as grants, not loans. 

As a memoir, the book delves into personal politics and makes sharp criticisms that will not resonate with all readers, wherever they may be on the political spectrum. However, the lucidity and detail with which Betts guides the reader through UNFCCC history makes for an engaging and informative read, and provides insight into the life and legacy of a fascinating individual who went to battle for the climate.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Main image: Poetra.RH on Shutterstock.

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The post Three lessons from a climate diplomat going into COP30 in Brazil first appeared on LSE Review of Books.

Reimagining the More-Than-Human City: Stories from Singapore. Jamie Wang. MIT Press. 2024.

Contradictions of an eco-modern state 

Singapore is celebrated as a global exemplar of sustainable urban development. It boasts an attractive green skyline, a thriving modern economy, and a high quality of life for many of the city-state’s residents. Over the past six decades, the Singaporean government has made concerted efforts to transform this 735-square-kilometre island of six million people into a green and modern knowledge economy. At the same time, the government has been criticised for its authoritarian approach to governance and its brazen pursuit of technocentric capitalist growth. In short, the urban sustainability story of Singapore is replete with numerous contradictions.

Wang highlights the extensive investment of money and materials that is required to build and maintain this highly engineered lush landscape.

In Reimagining the More-Than-Human City: Stories from Singapore, Jamie Wang probes beneath the glossy façade of Singapore’s triumphant sustainability narrative to explore the tensions, misalignments, and paradoxes of this eco-modern state. She draws upon her background as an environmental humanities scholar to tell “more-than-human” stories about urban greening, housing development, transportation and water infrastructures, and urban farming. The study highlights the co-constitution of humans and non-humans, and Wang notes that “exploring, collecting, and telling these stories is my attempt to weave together a more diverse, human and other-than human, material and affective urban life” (178). The result is a rich and nuanced narrative that weighs the benefits and drawbacks of Singapore’s pursuit of green capitalism while also encouraging readers to imagine alternative sustainable futures.  

Urban greening as state-building 

Urban greening is the most prominent agenda of Singapore’s eco-modern agenda and the city boasts thousands of greening initiatives that integrate nature and the city. The globally renowned Supertrees project as well as thousands of green walls and rooftop gardens serve as an effective branding tool to attract tourists while creating a pleasing aesthetic experience for residents. Wang highlights the extensive investment of money and materials that is required to build and maintain this highly engineered lush landscape and argues that the government’s greening agenda is less about ecological protection and more about producing governable configurations of non-humans and humans. She writes, “In controlling nature and the citizens in this regimented and interrelated way, Singapore effectively creates the sense of a highly secure, stable environment in which to invest, live, and visit” (36). In other words, urban gardening is a primary strategy of state-building.  

Erasing historic ways of life 

Control is also a dominant driver in the provision of collective services in Singapore. This is particularly evident in the government’s systematic replacement of traditional houses with high-rise residential towers. Today, the public housing programme provides stability and affordability for 80 per cent of the island’s residents. However, it comes at the expense of autonomy and the residents’ ability to choose from a broader array of housing options. Wang describes her visits to the few remaining traditional low-rise neighbourhoods where a slower, more deliberate mode of existence reflects the unique Singaporean culture of the past. She argues that the government’s comprehensive management of housing and land use is not only an infrastructural strategy to support dense living conditions but also a social engineering strategy to erase memory, culture, and communal modes of rural and semi-rural life.  

The push for security in agriculture and water 

A primary motivation of high-rise living in Singapore is to replace the traditional land-intensive agricultural economy with a land-efficient knowledge economy. Since the 1980s, the government has rezoned farmland to construct high-rise apartments, office buildings, and transportation infrastructure (152). This has resulted in steep declines in agricultural production and today, Singapore’s heavy reliance on food imports is a national security concern. The government has addressed this by supporting vertical farms, a new form of a food production that involves indoor growing on vertical shelves, often using hydroponic, aquaponic, and aeroponic techniques that do not require soil. The government promotes vertical farms as a key strategy to provide food security while bolstering the knowledge economy. Meanwhile, the compressed growing cycles and optimised production requirements of vertical farms involves significant energy, water, and fertiliser inputs while also replacing the traditional agrarian society with a globally-leading agrotechnology economy. 

She finds inspiration in spontaneous, uncontrolled instances where nature and humans diverge from the government’s ecomodernist script to reveal the relational and situated characteristics of the world.

National security concerns also drive the government’s plans to modernise Singapore’s water supply. The city-state currently imports about half of its water from Malaysia (119) and this creates risks due to uncertainties about future climate change impacts and geopolitical tensions. To achieve self-sufficiency by 2060, the Singaporean government has invested in desalinisation and water recycling technologies that are expensive and energy-intensive and produce significant volumes of toxic wastewater. Moreover, this high-tech approach to water supply decouples water from the island’s natural hydrological cycles, transforming it into a manufactured product for human consumption. Surprisingly, there is little emphasis on demand-side water management and efficiency programmes to reduce water consumption by the island’s agriculture and manufacturing industries.  

The limits of sustainable development under capitalism 

Wang’s study provides important lessons about the deficiencies of human-centred, capitalist, and technocratic forms of sustainable development. She argues that the championing of technoscientific innovation and economic growth serves to obliterate the social and cultural aspects of everyday life while alienating humans from their non-human surroundings. She finds inspiration in spontaneous, uncontrolled instances where nature and humans diverge from the government’s ecomodernist script to reveal the relational and situated characteristics of the world. For example, rare plants continue to thrive outside of the urban greening initiatives, animals do not always follow the prescribed ecological corridors, and small groups of Singaporeans continue to practice place-based forms of agriculture. These examples demonstrate that alternative configurations of humans and non-humans continue to co-exist alongside the controlled conditions of the Singaporean government. 

Wang concludes that “the work of reimagining through a rich and layered more-than-human relation is also an effort of re-collecting and re-membering, resisting the singular eco-modernist’s future” (179). Her insights go beyond Singapore to include all cities that are striving to align economic growth with ecological protection. Green and prosperous cities will not be achieved through the development and implementation of technology-led capitalist growth but instead require deliberate and sustained efforts to integrate humans and non-humans in the messy multiplicity of everyday life.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Main image: infinindy on Shutterstock.

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The post Beyond green skylines – Singapore and the limits of eco-modernism first appeared on LSE Review of Books.