Book Review | ‘The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet’ by Brett Christophers

An item in the Harper’s Index in the June 2024 issue of the magazine notes that corporate broadcast news coverage about climate change decreased by nearly 25 percent from 2022 to 2023, despite the fact that some of the hottest temperatures ever recorded occurred during that time. Out of sight of corporate news reporting isn’t out of mind. The American southwest was experiencing record-high temperatures a few weeks before the official start of summer 2024. According to the National Weather Service, temperatures are 20-30 degrees Fahrenheit above average for this time of year. 

When temperatures spike the demand for electricity follows suit, and some of that power is generated by renewable sources, solar and wind, that have decreased in price thanks to advances in technology, turbine design, storage, and perhaps most importantly, ongoing public subsidies. (In the United States tax credits are the primary form of subsidy.) While this is an encouraging development, it unfortunately falls far short of where the world needs to be. Fossil fuels are still used to generate the bulk of electricity in the United States, and, more significantly, in countries that are rapidly electrifying like India, China, Brazil, and Nigeria.  

China and India are the two largest electricity markets in the Asia-Pacific region, and in 2022 coal generated around 61 and 74 per cent of electricity respectively.

As geographer Brett Christophers argues in his latest book, The Price Is Wrong, decarbonizing electricity is critical to slowing global warming and mitigating its adverse effects, but the world isn’t moving toward decarbonization anywhere near expeditiously enough. When it comes to electricity generation, as Christophers notes, “capitalism is failing to turn away from fossil fuels sufficiently fast because clean alternatives for that activity are not proving profitable enough.”

Lack of profitability in renewables is the thesis that animates the entire book. Clean solar- and wind-generated power are obviously better for the climate, but not the financial bottom line, and unless the dictates of that line are met, renewables will not attract financing. Simply assuming that renewable power will be built because it’s cheaper or less harmful to the planet misunderstands the way capitalism functions. Profit is the reason Exxon, Chevron, and BP continue to drill and extract fossil fuels. Christophers returns to this point again and again: “This matters because in a capitalist economy, expected profitability is the measure according to which investment decisions are made.”

Generating electricity produces the most CO2 emissions, which is why decarbonizing electricity is so critical. Year after year, at global climate meetings and in reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this imperative is reiterated, and yet it’s not happening at the speed or scale required. Christophers explains the critical mechanisms at work, from financing and marketization to generation and distribution. Although The Price Is Wrong is a technical book with many footnotes, it’s written in plain enough language that a non-specialist can understand its main points. Reading the final chapter alone provides an understanding of how complex the electricity market is, as well as how significantly that market is impacted by political and economic forces and actors:

“To understand the fate of solar and wind power in any particular historical and geographical context, one must understand the local business of power — that is, the local political-economic conditions under which electricity is produced and consumed.”

Without the prospect of lucrative returns, capitalists don’t invest. Despite their price advantage, renewables are not supplanting fossil fuels because expected returns are not lucrative enough. In making this argument, Christophers dismantles the idea that private capital and market mechanisms are up to the task of leading an energy transition. 

We have been conditioned over the past half-century to put our faith in markets and private enterprise, but Christophers demonstrates that this faith is suspect when it comes to electricity: “Markets are not only impersonal and faceless; they are also unaccountable. Should not someone, or rather some democratically elected institutional collective of someones, be taking responsibility?” 

This review originally appeared in the California Review of Books.