The Roosevelt Institute 271d ago

Climate policy is often debated in a technocratic bubble—obscuring the very real power dynamics that determine whether the fossil economy is inescapable or a clean economy is inevitable. Political scientist Jessica Green’s new book, Existential Politics: Why Global Climate Institutions Are Failing and How to Fix Them, moves the conversation forward by reorienting policymakers and the public toward thinking of emissions challenges as the distributional and political questions they really are: Presented with an existential threat to their businesses, fossil fuel companies will never voluntarily decarbonize. Green argues for moving past “measuring tons”—approaches like carbon pricing, carbon offsets, and net-zero targets that do little to nothing to weaken the power of holders of dirty assets. In their place, she calls for “radically pragmatic” solutions like global minimum corporate taxes, an end to fossil-friendly investor-state dispute settlement arbitrations, and industrial policy. Combined, these solutions can help rebalance the scales toward the owners of green assets, transforming the political economy equation. Learn more: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/ Follow us on Twitter: https://x.com/rooseveltinst Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Roosevelt.Institute/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/roosevelt-institute/ Follow us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/rooseveltinstitute.org © Roosevelt Institute 2025