Capitalism as main driver of climate change

Essay from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - Economic Policy, grade: 2.0, University of Edinburgh (School of Social and Political Sciences), course: Sustainable Development 1A: Introduction, language: English, abstract: Nowadays, the dominating economic system of capitalism can be found in nearly every state of the world. In the following capitalism should be understood as a unique historical formation based on the existence of a mercantile class, the accumulation of capital, the omnipresence of competition and the separation of production goods from the state. Concurrently, as I will express with this essay, capitalism can not avoid bearing the market failure of climate change. To support my core thesis, I will present two main arguments in the following. First, it will be discussed how fundamental fossil fuels (for example coal, petroleum and natural gas) are for capitalism and the extent to which the capitalist economy can (not) be decoupled from fossil fuel use. Therefore, I will raise the case study example of coal as one of the most important fossil fuels. Second, this essay will address the question of how fundamental enclosures and the rush for land are for the capitalist economic system will be answered. To illustrate that, I will explore the example of palm oil production. This essay will briefly conclude by presenting the main implications for addressing challenges related to climate change.