, Columnist
Capitalism Can Thrive Without Cooking the Planet
Many countries are producing more while cutting carbon emissions.
Carbon emission in action.
Photographer: F. Carter Smith/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
In environmentalist circles, there’s a common trope that for humanity to prevent catastrophic climate change, economic growth must stop. This idea has helped to turn what should be a hard-headed, rational debate into a partisan political one -- many on the right suspect that climate-change activism is a thin veneer for a socialist plot to throttle the economies of the rich world, while some on the left embrace the notion of an inherent contradiction between capitalism and sustainability. But this partisanship is unnecessary, because the trope is wrong. Economic growth is perfectly compatible with cutting pollutants that contribute to global warming like carbon dioxide.