Via The Indypendent:

It is clear from all the studies and possibilities – as well as nearly two decades of delays and sabotage of international treaties to address climate change – that the central problem is the political priorities of the social and economic regime of Capital. This point was made forthrightly by the United Nations in its 2011 report, Towards a Green Economy:

“Although the causes of these crises vary, at a fundamental level they all share a common feature: the gross misallocation of capital. During the last two decades, much capital was poured into property, fossil fuels and structured financial assets with embedded derivatives, but relatively little in comparison was invested in renewable energy, energy efficiency, public transportation, sustainable agriculture, ecosystem and biodiversity protection, and land and water conservation.”

Hardly a hotbed of radical thought, the United Nations says the system is to blame.

The real answer to whether or not we can power the planet on clean energy isn’t so much a technical question as a social and political problem. Either we change the social power relations or we will continue to obtain our electrical power from fossil and nuclear sources.