A climate for business: global warming, the state and capital

Abstract

This article challenges accounts of global environmental politics which come from a liberal institutionalist position and focus on the development of international regimes. We argue that a perspective which starts from the role of the state in promoting capital accumulation can much better explain the content both of state policies and of particular international agreements. We first outline the way that fossil fuel companies have been able to secure their interests in state policies on global warming. We then develop the argument that their ability to do this is best explained in terms of the structural power of capital, deriving from the role of the state within capitalist societies. Finally, we suggest that this may also be producing transformations within global warming politics, as insurance companies in particular become involved. Such involvement, particularly given the heightened power of finance under conditions of globalization, suggests the possibility of constructing coalitions which may turn the constraints which the structural power of capital has produced to date into opportunities to promote attempts to deal with global warming.