Debate: Are the Extinction Rebellion protesters right to target their anger at capitalism?

Are the Extinction Rebellion protesters right to target their anger at capitalism?

Yes – Asad Rehman is executive director of War on Want

From the burning of the Amazon to the melting Arctic ice shelf, we are watching our planet rushing into catastrophe. But behind this crisis is also a story of extreme poverty and inequality, one where half of the world’s population are struggling to survive on $5 a day, and where those least responsible pay the price for a crisis they didn’t cause.

We have long known the names of those responsible for these crises – they are the banks and corporations that have amassed huge wealth by putting profit ahead of any consideration of either people or the planet. Their exploitative practices have been hardwired into an economic model that has given them unfettered power to rip up any environmental protections. 

With 100 corporations responsible for a whopping 71 per cent of global emissions, they dwarf any action that any individual can take. Maintaining a capitalist system, whose very logic is the ruthless exploitation of poor people and our natural resources, is a death sentence for the planet, and ultimately for all its citizens. 

No – Viscount Ridley is author of The Rational Optimist

The innovation that comes with commerce and capitalism has drastically reduced the amount of land, water and fuel we need to produce a given quantity of food or energy, saving nature. 

Carbon emissions have fallen fastest in the US of any leading economies. Contrast with Germany, which took a government-knows-best approach to energy policy, sluicing money into wind, solar and bio-gas, with the result that its emissions have stopped falling and it will miss its 2020 climate goals.

Capitalism constantly tries to give you more for less: more food from less land, more goods for fewer resources. Capitalism gave us LED lighting that provides more light for much less electricity, while governments were still insisting we use compact fluorescents. 

Market reforms gave us the dash from coal to gas; governments gave us the diesel scandal and the burning of forests for electricity under the mistaken impression that emissions from burned wood are holy while emissions from burned coal are evil. 

We cannot slow climate change without capitalism.