How to blow up a techno-market fix

Last year, energy data company BloombergNEF heralded the lift-off of a $1.8 trillion Climate Tech Revolution that ranged from improved heat pumps to net-zero fuels (Kahn and Ma Citation2024). In the same period, activists in the UK and the U.S. demanded an immediate stop to the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, and consequently face harsh prisons sentences under new anti-demonstration laws drafted by fossil fuel industry lobby groups (Just Stop Oil Citation2024; Murethi, Citation2023; Beaumont and Lakhani, Citation2024). More recently, investigative journalists reported that fossil fuel companies have consciously propagated ‘fake climate solutions’ like biofuels, hydrogen and carbon capture (Westervelt Citation2024).