Take Note, Capitalists: Green Energy Is Where the Growth Is

With atmospheric carbon soaring and temperatures rising, the world needs leadership to curb emissions and fend off worst-case climate scenarios. President Donald Trump sure won’t help, but another seemingly unlikely hero — capitalism — might come to the rescue.

Capitalism helped get us into this mess by building a global economy around fossil fuels. But change seems to be coming, even if you must squint at the margins to see it. Take coal: Around the world, power plants that burn the stuff are still being built at a depressingly high rate. But coal-plant closures outpaced new approvals for the first time in a long time last year, notes David Fickling. And the pace of new oil and gas development has slowed dramatically, David writes, to a pace roughly on track to help the world avoid runaway climate change: