There is no doubt: The Climate Movement took off thanks to NGOs and Activists, leaving the academia full of critics for inaction, excess of ego and pointless debates. Despite the failure of academia on calling to action for climate change, or even promoting a meaningful change, this time every intervention needs to be supported.

A letter signed by more than 100 economists published in the Guardian outlines how the “carbon economy” amplifies racial, social and economic inequities, and lays out a strategy for improving this situation. “From deep-rooted racism to the Covid-19 pandemic, from extreme inequality to ecological collapse, our world is facing dire and deeply interconnected emergencies.

But as much as the present moment painfully underscores the weaknesses of our economic system, it also gives us the rare opportunity to reimagine it. As we seek to rebuild our world, we can and must end the carbon economy,” they write.

The effects on Climate Change have been more deadly all around the world, this “exposes the hard reality of climate change”. It adds:

“Experts argue that every country must fundamentally rethink how it prepares for similar disasters as the effects of global warming accelerate.”

They call on:

1. 1. Governments must actively phase out the fossil fuel industry.
2. 2. Institutions of financial power must end their fossil fuel investments and funding.
3. 3. People must build political power to advocate for a fairer economic system.
4. 4. Policymakers to recognize the role that meaningful climate action has to play in rebuilding our world – to recognize that a healthy economy and society require a healthy planet.

The Global School for Social Leaders joins this call on ending the carbon economy NOW.

Read the full letter here.

Some of the signers:

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University

Gabriel Zucman, University of California, Berkeley

Robert B. Reich, University of California, Berkeley

Dani Rodrik, Harvard University

Mariana Mazzucato, UCL

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Columbia University

Darrick Hamilton, The Ohio State University

Gernot Wagner, New York University

Erik Brynjolfsson, Stanford University

Emmanuel Saez, University of California, Berkeley

Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research

Ann Pettifor, Policy Research in Macroeconomics

Michael Ash, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, John Jay College – CUNY 

Douglas Almond, Columbia University

Stephen A. Marglin, Harvard University

Clair Brown, University of California, Berkeley

Juliet Schor, Boston College

And many more..