Climate capitalism and the global corporate elite network

Abstract

This paper explores the political involvement of transnational corporations and their directors in elaborating the project of 'climate capitalism' advanced to address climate change. Climate capitalism seeks to redirect investments from fossil energy to renewable energy generation, so as to foster an ecological modernization of production and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. I use social network analysis to assess the potential for climate capitalism, as a project of a section of the corporate elite, to replace the current 'carboniferous capitalist' regime. Corporate-funded climate and environmental policy groups (CEPGs) constitute major venues for the corporate elite to assemble and plan their response to the climate crisis. By mapping out the network of board-level interlocks between CEPGs and the largest transnational corporations, I first find that certain CEPGs are centrally located among the global intercorporate network, and thus well positioned to promote climate capitalism among the corporate elite. Second, I delineate a climate capitalist inner circle that includes the individual members of the corporate community who arguably are able to exert the greatest power to shape climate capitalism. However, many of them, close to the oil and nuclear sectors, may support a long-term transition away from fossil fuels, incompatible with avoiding dangerous climatic warming.

14 Promises of Climate Engineering after Neoliberalism

“…Neoliberal climate policy has been shaped in the tension between climate denialism and climate activism (alongside nearly all of climate science). Whilst denialism has a far stronger presence in the Trump administration than it did in the Clinton and Obama ones, and in this sense an improved standing, there is still a broad coalition of actors in support of climate policy, including states, civil society organisations and parts of industry (Sapinski 2015, Smith 2017, and international pressure (especially after the Paris Agreement).…”

Beyond Denialism: Think Tank Approaches to Climate Change

“…To get the full story on how US climate policy develops, sociologists need to not only study the conservative climate-denial movement, they should also study how elite think tanks have sought to develop certain kinds of climate policies that they view as corporate-friendly and conducive to capital accumulation in the years ahead. When doing so, of course, sociologists will need to keep in mind the limitations of such policy proposals (Sapinski 2015). Many social scientists and other critics argue that the climate crisis cannot be resolved without transforming capitalism (Foster 2001;Foster, Clark, and York 2010;Gould, Pellow, and Schnaiberg 2008;Klein 2014).…”

“…Indeed, more and more companies are determining that there are "many good business opportunities in a carbon constrained world" (Newell and Patterson 2010: 36). This point is bolstered by Sapinski's (2015) findings that many large companies on the global Fortune 500 list have connections, through interlocking board members, with environmental policy groups that are discussing measures to reduce carbon emissions. There are, in sum, sharp divisions within the corporate community on the issue of climate change.…”

Managing the carbon rift: Social metabolism, geoengineering and climate capitalism

“…They have however proved an effective way to support large scale energy generation projects and schemes seeking to enclose forest commons in the global South, and thus have served to redistribute wealth and land rights to capitalist elites (Böhm et al 2012;Böhm and Dabhi 2009;Isla 2015;Lohmann 2006Lohmann , 2008. Furthermore, as a project of a section of the global corporate elite, climate capitalism constitutes a compromise regime between climate change denial and the demands for deep structural change of climate justice activists and scholars (Sapinski 2015(Sapinski , 2016.…”