Fossil capitalism, climate capitalism, energy democracy: the struggle for hegemony in an era of climate crisis

Abstract

With the highest per capita carbon emissions among the G20, Canada presents the interesting case of a climate laggard and, in some respects, a first-world petro-state. In these circumstances, a regime of obstruction, with a distinctive political-economic architecture, has taken shape. This regime is constituted through modalities of power that protect revenue streams issuing from carbon extraction, processing and transport while bolstering popular support for an accumulation strategy in which fossil capital figures as a leading fraction. It incorporates a panoply of hegemonic practices at different scales, reaching into civil and political society, and into Indigenous communities whose land claims and worldviews challenge state mandated property rights. This article first highlights findings from a seven-year collaborative investigation of the modalities through which fossil capital’s economic and political-cultural power is exercised at different scales; then outlines how the passive-revolutionary project of ‘climate capitalism’ is taking shape in the Canadian context as a response to climate crisis; and finally considers how a project of energy democracy might hold the potential to catalyze the formation of an alternative historical bloc.

A critical review of energy democracy: A failure to deliver justice?

“…Illustrating all this, the literature on energy democracy fails to acknowledge the shortcomings of democratic models in giving visibility and ensuring equality to vulnerable communities such as indigenous peoples in the developing and the least developed worlds [56], a topic to which we return when dealing with recognition (section 4.3.1). Not many energy democracy papers deal with indigenous peoples some look into these peoples in the US [23], Canada [57] and Mexico [41,58].…”

Whose climate intervention? Solar geoengineering, fractions of capital, and hegemonic strategy

“…Others wager that capital's response to climate change augurs two conflicting political responses: Climate Leviathan, a green-Keynesian capitalist alliance enacted via the scaling up of sovereign power to the planetary level, and Climate Behemoth, a coalition defined by fossil capitalism, nationalism, authoritarianism, and militarization (Wainwright and Mann 2018). Similarly, Carroll (2020) emphasizes that climate capitalism aims to generate a passive revolution and instantiate a "green" regime of accumulation as a compromise between fossil capital at one end of the spectrum, and the progressive project of energy democracy at the other (see also Brand 2016;Sapinski 2016;Surprise 2018;2020b). These potential configurations are speculative, but rooted in concrete shifts in capitalist power.…”

“…The capitalist state organizes crisis-interventions not directly on the behalf of any particular fraction of capital, but to manage conflicts in capitalist societies that ultimately maintain the hegemony of capitalist social relations. The era of climate crisis requires an understanding of the relationship between the state, capitalist fractions, and intervention that moves beyond narrow conceptions of economic sectors to include issues of societal consequence that represent opposing interests among fractions within the power bloc (Carroll 2020;Ougaard 2016;Robinson & Harris 2000). A number of recent analyses identify a split in the power bloc centering on fossil capital and sectors more aligned with technology capital and inclined to climate action (climate capital).…”

Amplifying “Keep It in the Ground” First-Movers: Toward a Comparative Framework

“…The fossil fuel sector, especially in countries with significant extractive resources, is well-resourced to undertake continual political interventions (Brulle 2018). Moreover, these firms coordinate with each other and with policy-makers more easily than a disparate and decentralized decarbonization movement (Carroll 2017(Carroll , 2020Hess 2016;Trencher et al 2019).…”

“…Fossil fuel firms and their associations continue to resist KIIG movements. Indeed, in major producing states like Canada, a coherent "regime of obstruction" has formed to ensure status quo fossil fuel extraction (Carroll 2020). Moreover, many of these bans are arguably piecemeal, or with delayed impact.…”