New Climate Strategy: Make Fossil Fuels Unprofitable

After 30 years of carbon pricing and climate targets, researcher Jessica Green says it's time to admit the current approach isn't working and try something radically different.

Green, a University of Toronto professor, published her book "Existential Politics" last year with a bold message. The Paris Agreement and global climate conferences have failed to reduce emissions fast enough because they keep the old fossil fuel system in place.

Her solution sounds simple but powerful. Instead of complex carbon markets and offset programs, make it harder and more expensive to pull oil and gas out of the ground in the first place.

"The liberal fantasy was that if you build it, they will come," Green explains. "If you make EVs or solar cheap enough, then it will just happen. But it doesn't work that way."

She points to a telling example. We have the technology for free electricity from renewable sources, yet we don't have it. The barrier isn't technical but economic and political.

Current policies like carbon pricing have become so complicated that regular people can't understand them. That complexity creates its own political problems, turning climate action into an alienating technical exercise rather than a shared mission.

Green argues we need to remove the privileges and protections that fossil fuel companies have enjoyed since World War II. The G7 has talked about eliminating fossil fuel subsidies since 2005, yet those subsidies persist.

Why This Inspires

Green's approach offers something refreshing in climate discussions: honest assessment paired with actionable solutions. She acknowledges the frustration many people feel about climate policy while refusing to give in to despair.

Her focus on supply rather than demand shifts the burden away from individual consumers and toward the systems that keep fossil fuels profitable. This reframing could make climate action feel less overwhelming and more achievable for everyday people.

The researcher also sees encouraging signs of change already happening, even if unintentionally. Climate concerns are now reshaping trade policy, energy security discussions, and supply chain decisions at the highest levels of government.

"Climate is now at the top of the list, even if it's not called climate," she notes. The reckoning she calls for may already be underway through economic and security policies.

Green insists we don't need to wait for capitalism to end or society to completely transform. We need practical tools that work within current systems while fundamentally changing how profitable it is to extract fossil fuels.

Sometimes the most practical solution is the one that seemed too radical to consider.