The Climate Power Struggle: Politics, Money, Energy, and the Battle for the Future of the Planet

It possesses technologies capable of transforming energy systems.

It possesses financial institutions capable of mobilising enormous quantities of capital.

It possesses international institutions capable of coordinating collective action.

And yet the political challenge remains formidable.

The difficulty is not simply knowing what is happening.

It is deciding what to do.

It is deciding how quickly to act.

It is deciding who pays.

It is deciding who benefits.

It is deciding whose interests deserve protection.

It is deciding what constitutes fairness.

It is deciding how national interests can coexist with a global problem.

And it is deciding whether political institutions are capable of thinking beyond the next election, the next budget cycle, the next quarterly report and the next crisis.

That is the real political challenge of climate change.

The atmosphere may be shared.

Power is not.

Resources are not.

Responsibility is not.

Vulnerability is not.

And neither is the capacity to shape the future.

The struggle over climate change is therefore, at its deepest level, a struggle over who gets to decide what the future will look like.

The chapters that follow enter that struggle.

They examine the science behind the politics, the economics behind the decisions, the institutions that exercise power, the industries that seek influence, the communities demanding justice, the governments negotiating responsibility, and the emerging forces reshaping the global energy system.

Because climate change is not simply changing the planet.

It is changing politics itself.

And the future of the planet will depend, in no small measure, on how that politics unfolds.