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I am a tree hugger.
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I spent much of my childhood
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on the great lower limb
of a massive copper beech,
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alternately reading and looking up
at the sky through its branches.
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I felt safe and cared for
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and connected to something
infinitely larger than myself.
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I thought the trees were immortal,
that they would always be here.
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But I was wrong.
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The trees are dying.
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Climate change is killing
the cedars of Lebanon
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and the forests of the American West.
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And it's not just the trees.
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Since 1998, extreme heat
has killed more than 160,000 people,
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and unchecked climate change
could kill millions more.
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How did we get here?
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There are many reasons, of course,
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but one of the most important
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is that we let capitalism
morph into something monstrous.
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I'm a huge fan of capitalism at its best.
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After all, I'm an economist
and a business school professor.
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I think genuinely free and fair markets
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are one of the great inventions
of the human race.
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But here's the catch:
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markets only work their magic
when prices reflect real costs.
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And right now, prices
are badly out of whack.
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We're letting the firms
who sell fossil fuels,
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and indeed anyone
who emits greenhouse gases,
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cause enormous damage
for which they do not have to pay.
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And that is hardly fair.
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Imagine for a moment
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that my hands are filled
with a cloud of electrons,
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10 dollars' worth
of coal-fired electricity
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that could power your cell phone
for more than 10 years.
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That probably sounds
like a pretty good deal.
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But it's only so cheap
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because you're not paying
for the harm that it causes.
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Burning coal sends poisons
like mercury and lead into the air,
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increasing healthcare costs
by billions of dollars
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and causing the death
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of hundreds of thousands
of people every year.
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It also emits huge quantities
of carbon dioxide.
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So another part of the real cost of coal
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is the climate damage it will cause
and is already causing.
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More than a million acres
burned in California this summer,
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and massive floods put a third
of Bangladesh under water.
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Hundreds of studies have tried
to put a number on these costs.
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My sense of this work,
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and here I'm relying on my colleagues
in the School of Public Health
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and my friends in economics,
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is that generating 10 dollars' worth
of coal-fired electricity
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causes at least eight dollars' worth
of harm to human health
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and at least another
eight dollars' worth of climate damage
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and probably much more.
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So the true cost
of this handful of electrons?
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It's not 10 dollars.
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It's something more like 26.
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The hidden costs of doing
things like burning oil and gas
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and eating beef are similarly
enormous and just as unfair.
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Everyone who's trying
to build a clean economy
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has to compete with firms
that are heavily subsidized
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by the destruction of our health
and the degradation of our climate.
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This is not the capitalism
I signed up for.
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This is not a market
that is either free or fair.
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So ...
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What do we do?
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The "easy" answer
is that governments should insist
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that anyone who emits greenhouse gases
pay for the damage that they cause.
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However, at the moment,
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there's not much sign
that governments are up for this,
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partly because the fossil fuel companies
have spent the last 20 years
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using their heavily subsidized profits
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to deny the reality of climate change
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and to shower the politicians,
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who should be regulating them, with money.
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So here's my crazy idea.
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I think business should step up.
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I think business should fix capitalism.
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I know.
(Laughs)
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Some of you are probably
thinking, "Fat chance."
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Didn't I just say that companies
are the ones denying the science,
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distorting the market
and lobbying the politicians?
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I did.
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But fixing this is squarely
in the private sector's interest.
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The truth is business is screwed
if we don't fix climate change.
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It's going to be hard to make money
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when the great coastal
cities are under water
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and millions of angry people
are migrating north as the harvests fail.
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It's going to be tough
to keep free enterprise alive
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if most people believe
the rich and the white
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are using it to trash the planet
for their own benefit.
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So let me tell you
what this looks like on the ground.
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My friend Erik Osmundsen
left a cushy job in private equity
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to become the CEO of a garbage company.
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That sounds like a slightly odd idea.
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But Erik wanted to make a difference,
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and changing the way that trash is handled
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could reduce emissions
by billions of tons.
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Right away, he ran into a massive problem:
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the industry was thoroughly corrupt.
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Firms were cutting costs
by dumping waste illegally,
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the regulations were poorly enforced
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and the fines for violation were tiny.
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Erik announced he was going to run clean
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and to raise prices
to cover the costs of doing so.
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Many of his senior team
thought he was crazy.
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Half of them quit.
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So did many of his customers.
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His competitors denounced him
for bringing the industry into disrepute,
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and he started
to receive personal threats.
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But corruption works best
when it's hidden.
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As soon as Erik went public,
people started to step up.
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A few customers were willing to pay more.
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His investors agreed that taking
the high road could pay off.
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Those of his employees who remained
loved the idea of taking a stand
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and found all kinds
of legal ways to cut costs.
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Erik persuaded several of his competitors
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to join him in refusing
to dispose of garbage illegally,
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and it got much tougher
for regulators to stay on the sidelines.
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Today, Erik's company, Norsk Gjenvinning,
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is one of the largest
recycling companies in Scandinavia.
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Let me generalize.
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These are the four pillars of change:
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Build a business
that can set the right price
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and still be profitable.
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Persuade your competitors
to do the same thing.
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Make sure that investors understand
there's money to be made.
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And push governments
to put the right price into law
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so that bottom-feeders can't survive.
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I'm not telling you we've got this nailed.
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Things are pretty desperate.
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But there are thousands
of businesspeople like Erik,
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and there are millions of people like us.
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And we are customers, employees,
investors and citizens.
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Instead of giving up
on capitalism, let's fix it
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by making sure that markets
are truly fair and truly free,
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and that no one can dump garbage on us
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and walk away without paying for it.
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We have the resources and the technology
to solve climate change.
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Together, we can save the trees
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and each other.
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Thank you.