Phenomenal World Event: Varieties of Derisking

On Tuesday June 6, Phenomenal World and the Polycrisis hosted a discussion on industrial policy, state capacity, macrofinance, and the green transition. Watch the full recording of the event here.

The discussion featured: Skanda Amarnath (Employ America), Melanie Brusseler (Common Wealth), Daniela Gabor (UWE Economics), and Chirag Lala (Center for Public Enterprise), and was moderated by JW Mason (John Jay College).

In recent years, the debate over climate policy has moved away from the earlier consensus in favor of carbon pricing and towards an investment-focused approach, illustrated by the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, along with other similar measures in the US and, to an extent, in Europe. 

There are good reasons to welcome this shift, both as a more promising response to the challenge of climate change and as a turn away from the neoliberal consensus of previous decades. Industrial policy is better able to address the real requirements and constraints of decarbonization than carbon pricing. It offers the possibility of a more robust political coalition in support of aggressive climate policy, and a way to overcome the long-standing problem of chronically weak demand in the advanced economies.

View the transcript of the event on Phenomenal World.