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Capitalism's Greatest Crash now likely within a Few Years

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Energy industry set to follow in footsteps of financial industry

There is a risk blindness being run by Big Energy that, unless action is taken, will lead to an inevitable global crash according to Jeremy Leggett in a new book – The Energy of Nations – published 26th September 2013. On the eve of the long-awaited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientific assessment of climate-change risk, the man described as "Britain's most respected green energy boss" writes of wider risk-taking in energy- and financial markets, as he has seen it play out – often behind closed doors – since the oil price began its inexorable rise in 2004. Jeremy Leggett concludes that too many people across the top levels of government and business have closed their eyes and ears to systemic risk taking.

Leggett bases his conclusions in a study of human behaviour as well as an understanding of the gas and oil markets. "Brain scientists tell us we have a very worrying collective tendency for blindness to the kind of risks that can crash economies, and imperil civilisations," Leggett concludes. "The financial crisis suggests they are right. Now we need to worry that the energy industries are about to repeat the behaviour traits of the financial sector, and on multiple fronts."

In his book, The Energy of Nations: Risk Blindness and the Road to Renaissance, Leggett describes four systemic risks being run by Big Energy. "The first and biggest is climate change. We have way more conventional fossil fuel than we need to wreck the climate. Yet the energy incumbency wants us to pile so-called unconventional deposits on the fire."

"Second, we risk creating a carbon bubble in the capital markets: puffing up assumed value in fossil fuels that can never be realised." Leggett is Chairman of Carbon Tracker, a financial think tank that aims to align the capital markets with international climate policymaking. Some financial institutions have already begun withdrawing investment in fossil fuels on reading Carbon Tracker's warnings.

"Third, we risk surprising ourselves with the so-called "shale boom" in gas and oil production. That too may prove to be a bubble, maybe even a Ponzi scheme."

"Fourth we court disaster with our assumptions about oil depletion. Most of us believe the incumbency narrative that there will be adequate supplies of affordable oil for decades to come. I am in a minority who don't."

"Given all this risk blindness, I conclude in my book that system collapse is probably inevitable. Better news is that there will be a road to renaissance, in the rebuilding, if we make the right decisions in the wake of the IPCC's latest warnings. We have to nurture clean energy industries, and strategies, and accelerate them as though mobilising for war. I do believe that is possible. If we were to do it, we could abate much of the horror that the IPCC will warn of in their scientific assessment tomorrow."

The Energy of Nations
Risk Blindness and the Road to Renaissance
by Jeremy Leggett     

Published by Routledge, 26thSeptember 2013
PB: 978-0-415-85782-6: £19.99
eBook: 978-0-315-88741-8
http://www.routledge.com/u/TheEnergyofNations/

About the Author:

Jeremy Leggett is a social entrepreneur and author. He has been an Entrepreneur of the Year at the NewEnergy Awards, a CNN Principal Voice, and is founder and chairman of renewable energy company Solarcentury, and SolarAid. He chairs the financial think tank CarbonTracker, contributes to the Guardian and the Financial Times, and is an Associate Fellow at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute.

Jeremy Leggett set up a solar company 13 years ago because of his fears about fossil-fuel dependency. Solarcentury, which he chairs, is today one of the most respected solar companies in the world. It set up a charity, SolarAid, with some of its profits. SolarAid's retail brand, SunnyMoney, is now Africa's number one retailer of solar lanterns.

For more information please contact:

Samantha Freeman:  Samantha.freeman@tandf.co.uk / +44 (0) 20 3377 3503
Helena Frisby: hfrisby@fenton.com / +44 (0)20 7759 1034
Jo Gibbons: jgibbons@fenton.com /+44 (0)20 7759 1028 (office) / +44 (0) 7710 477950 (mobile)

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Tags:

economy renewable energy Clean tech energy security economics electricity prices carbon energy crisis Routledge fossil fuel Jeremy Leggett Earthscan oil supply financial collapse Solar Century economic crash Carbon bubble Solar Aid

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At a time when most people view tomorrow's energy prospects through dark lenses of coal, oil, fracked gas or even methane hydrates, Jeremy Leggett shines a brilliant light on the path towards low or zero carbon energy. Illuminating. And a joy to read.
John Elkington, cofounder of ENDS, SustainAbility and Volans.
Jeremy Leggett is one of great entrepreneurs of the emerging solar era, a man driven by his passion for the environment and for social justice in the developing world to set up a new business (and a new charity) to give expression to those ideas. ‘ The Energy of Nations’ tells it as it needs to be heard, with new – and genuinely sustainable – business models at the heart of today’s transformation going on today in the global economy
Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director, Forum for the Future
A story very well told. As far as I am aware there is no one on this planet who has a comparable all-encompassing, multi-disciplinary view and understanding of these issues to Leggett's.
Stephan Schmidheiny, Founder, World Council for Sustainable Development
To understand what is going on you need to be a polymath who has worked at the highest levels on all sides. Jeremy Leggett is that person, and he provides clarity of thinking in a consistently delightful written style.
Paul Dickinson, Chairman, Carbon Disclosure Project.