It’s capitalism, not socialism, that will beat climate change

When John Glenn was asked what went through his mind as he became the first American in space, he said it was the nerve-wracking thought that ‘every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.’

It’s a revealing insight. Perhaps even more so than the ‘Blue Marble’ photograph of Earth taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, which inspired early environmentalists. Glenn was acknowledging that market economics made it possible for a government to achieve Herculean feats. True, the Soviets were in the race too, but then their system collapsed completely. Capitalism has staying power – and that’s what we need now in the fight against climate change.

The UK’s Committee on Climate Change (CCC) set an optimistic tone in its report on reaching net zero emissions by 2050. Not only can it be done, the report says, but its impact on the UK’s GDP will be minimal. The committee called for a combination of technologies and behavioural change, all of which were impressively ambitious and perfectly possible.