So many climate solutions, so few emissions reductions. A new book explains why.

In 2022, a team of innovative researchers proposed a rather ambitious idea: harnessing a network of artificial lamps to illuminate tropical forests at night, with the intention of significantly enhancing photosynthesis. Their hypothesis, focused primarily on the Amazon rainforest, suggested that such an initiative could remarkably amplify the uptake of CO2 by plants, claiming it might “completely offset” humanity’s carbon emissions. While they acknowledged in their published paper that their theoretical framework might overlook the immense logistical costs of installing millions of lamps, the source of clean energy for this endeavor, and potential disruptions to local wildlife, they described their proposition as an intriguing and “novel” concept.

This idea seems radical, preferring intervention in natural ecosystems over more conventional approaches, such as the cessation of fossil fuel extraction. Yet over the past few years, such proposals have proliferated within a larger discourse surrounding “climate solutions.” Other alternatives have ranged from the audacious concept of planting 1 trillion trees—a plan that raises questions regarding its climatic efficacy and feasibility in terms of land use—to cultivating bacteria capable of consuming carbon, and even devising ways to manage global sea level changes through the construction of massive underwater barriers. Among the more extreme suggestions is the notion of redirecting asteroids into different orbits, a proposition fraught with peril, such as the risk of dislodging Earth from its orbit around the Sun.

In their insightful new book, The Long Heat: Climate Politics When It’s Too Late, Swedish scholars Wim Carton and Andreas Malm delve into the underlying issues propelling these complex ideas. They argue that such radical interventions stem from society’s reluctance to confront “fossil capital”—a comprehensive network composed of infrastructures, assets, and entities that prioritize the protection of fossil fuel interests. This network includes pipeline industries, automobile manufacturers, energy companies, financial institutions, and beyond. The authors express that those attempting to tackle climate change have framed fossil capital as an “unassailable background condition,” prompting a search for alternative targets to assail, which has now led to proposals even as far-fetched as adjusting the natural cycle of day and night.

“Submission to the existing political landscape leads to reckless experimentation with ecosystems and entire biomes,” they assert. “Since the former remains untouchable, the latter must be altered.”

The Long Heat is the second part of a project that Carton and Malm humorously refer to as a “Marxist IPCC report of a readable nature,” drawing a parallel to the technical analyses regularly released by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, it’s important to note that while the term “readable” may suggest accessibility, neither The Long Heat nor its predecessor, Overshoot, are particularly easy reads for a general audience. They are intended for those already well-versed and likely exasperated by the sluggish and seemingly ineffective climate change-related political processes.

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Overshoot, which was published last year, introduced the concept that humanity has embarked on a new phase of climate politics, characterized by the belief that we can surpass global climate targets and later rely on technology to reverse temperature increases. In The Long Heat, the authors expand upon this ideology, illustrating how it has led to the emergence of the technological “climate solutions” currently being explored. Their book is not merely critical of these approaches—extensive literature exists regarding the flawed mathematics behind carbon removal and the inherent arrogance associated with geoengineering—but it also ties these concepts together, elucidating the historical context of their development and the challenges posed by capitalism in addressing climate issues directly.

Despite the lack of detailed proposals, the authors advocate for a need to “break the doom loop” of perpetually escalating infrastructure and profits, urging a return to the critical need for direct action against fossil fuel investments.

Naomi Klein’s seminal work This Changes Everything, published in 2014, popularized the argument that climate action and capitalism are fundamentally incompatible. Klein contended that preventing climate collapse necessitates a reduction in resource use, something that contravenes capitalism’s inherent dependency on continuous growth. She famously stated, “Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s not the laws of nature.”

While this perspective holds substantial weight, the reality is that during the past decade, society has generally opted to sidestep this challenging truth. Rather than confronting the urgent need to transform our fossil fuel-dependent economy, many so-called climate solutions driven by capitalist motivations have aimed either to modify natural laws or have promoted the fallacy that economic “tipping points” will naturally usurp fossil fuels in favor of renewables.

Carton and Malm align with sentiments echoed in various recent publications—including Brett Christophers’ The Price Is Wrong and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz’s More and More and More—arguing that markets alone will not guide us through a green transition. Rather, it is incumbent upon humanity to actively orchestrate the cessation of the fossil fuel era.

Currently, the conversation surrounding climate initiatives may appear to be overly pessimistic. In the U.S., Donald Trump’s electoral victories have validated a resurgence in climate denialism, while many supposed advancements—including net-zero banking alliances and corporate decarbonization commitments—have proven hollow, as financial institutions, technology corporations, and oil giants have forsaken their climate pledges. In the first hour of his second term, Trump formally announced the U.S.’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and declared a national energy emergency designed to facilitate a rapid expansion of oil and gas infrastructure.

However, neglecting the root causes of climate change does not eliminate climate politics; it merely shifts the focus elsewhere. Carton and Malm assert that the mounting pressure generated by escalating climate impacts will necessitate relief through alternative avenues, including adaptation, carbon removal, and geoengineering, all of which will bring about their own political consequences.

Among the examples cited are the extensive mégabassines in France—massive water reservoirs that began to spring up in rural areas around the early 2000s as a response to a warming climate in Europe. These reservoirs collect water during the winter months from groundwater and nearby streams to ensure irrigation for large agricultural operations during the hot summer.

Yet, the mégabassines have sparked significant controversy. Critics contend that they divert water from smaller-scale farmers to benefit major agribusinesses focused on export, leading to clashes. In 2023, thousands of demonstrators attempted to dismantle one of the installations at Sainte-Soline, resulting in confrontations with law enforcement involving “rocks, fireworks, and Molotov cocktails.”

To Carton and Malm, the events at Sainte-Soline exemplify the consequences of governments facing worsening climate scenarios but opting for adaptation measures instead of genuine emission reductions. Over the past five years, world leaders have escalated plans for resilience not through a commitment to sever fossil fuel reliance, but with assurances to combat natural calamities (Germany), invest in more robust infrastructure (Canada), or acknowledge climate change and manage its effects (South Korea).

Yet while adaptation measures are both essential and pragmatic, as seen with France’s mégabassines, they often serve as a convenient pretext allowing resources to be concentrated among an elite minority. This creates a façade of action regarding the climate crisis, sidestepping calls to tackle its fundamental drivers.

The Long Heat also critiques carbon removal technologies, a class of solutions deemed essential by the IPCC. However, Carton and Malm regard these as distractions from the overarching necessity of curbing emissions. They reflect on the frenzied race to monetize unverified strategies, such as submerging seaweed deep into oceans—“we had a startup before there was even scientific consensus,” they quip while remarking on this phenomenon.

Among their sharpest criticisms lies in the emerging field of direct air capture, which has become the refuge of fossil fuel executives asserting that it grants them “a license to continue operations,” potentially extending oil and gas production indefinitely. Currently, these methods remove a minuscule quantity of CO2—a mere 0.0023 gigatons yearly via the most consistent techniques, a staggering 15,000 times less than the annual climate pollution from fossil fuel combustion and cement production.

Nevertheless, governments tout these technologies as rationales for stagnating genuine decarbonization efforts, with Carton and Malm clarifying, “The notion of removals has materially impacted our reality, even while remaining a mere theoretical construct.”

What’s more troubling is that carbon removal has transmuted into a profit-generating opportunity, creating revenue streams first by burning fossil fuels and subsequently by monetizing the resultant emissions—whether through repurposing them into new products or establishing markets around carbon offsets for emissions that still primarily originate from fossil fuel consumption.

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Finally, the authors scrutinize solar radiation management—a geoengineering strategy involving aerosol injections into the atmosphere to lower global temperatures. This idea has gained traction over the years, but William Carton and Malm express skepticism regarding its potential deployment alongside effective emissions reductions. They fear it would merely introduce another profit avenue for corporations and governments, leveraging expensive, fossil fuel-powered jets for operations. Moreover, they caution about the potential for “termination shock,” when such interventions cease, resulting in a sudden spike in temperature unless greenhouse gas levels have substantially fallen. Carton and Malm conclude with a resolute stance: uncompromising opposition to geoengineering is the only viable choice.

While there is a pervasive tone of pessimism in The Long Heat, it is equally reflective of the justified exasperation pervasive throughout the authors’ discourse. They convey a profound discontent towards the current trajectory of climate politics, referring to the contemporary state of capitalism as “excremental,” asserting its chronic inability to practice restraint, forcing it to “swim in filth while crafting new hazmat suits just to survive.”

Such frustration is legitimate: since the foundational UN Framework Convention on Climate Change established its commitment to preventing “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system,” annual carbon emissions from fossil fuel sources have escalated nearly 70 percent, and atmospheric CO2 levels soared from 360 to 431 parts per million.

As Carton and Malm declare, “The 21st-century capitalist society seems fundamentally incapable of resolving any issue; all it can do is treat symptoms.”

The stark paradox presented in the subtitle of The Long Heat—“Climate Politics When It’s Too Late”—is the acknowledgment that we have already surpassed the moment in which a singular focus on greenhouse gas emission reductions suffices. The trivialization of vital emissions cuts in favor of adaptation and carbon removal strategies has exacerbated the urgency for these alternatives. Without decisive action, climate-related disasters—disease outbreaks, extreme weather, droughts, etc.—will disproportionately affect the world’s most vulnerable populations, causing amplified destruction and deepening social inequities.

Ultimately, Carton and Malm advocate for the dismantling of carbon markets, which encourage substitutive offsets instead of true emissions elimination. While they concede that technological carbon removal could theoretically be effective, it must not detract from vital mitigation efforts. Moreover, it should be coupled with “a program of capital destruction”: the dismantling of existing fossil fuel frameworks.

The most significant glimmer of hope the authors proffer lies within the uncertainty of the future; we cannot predict what lies ahead. The future may veer in unexpected, possibly more radical paths. Thus, even while achieving the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C may have become implausible, as Carton and Malm succinctly put it, “it is also too late to surrender.”