New Books Network Nicholas Beuret, "Or Something Worse: Why We Need to Disrupt the Climate Transition" (Verso, 2025)
Mar 6, 2026
Nicholas Beuret, a lecturer who moved from environmental activism into academic research, outlines how the climate transition often reinforces inequality. He questions green growth, details rising everyday costs and new security-focused jobs, and highlights disruptive tactics like blockades and community-led planning. Short, urgent, and provocative.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Transition Economy Is State-Led De-Risking For Capital
- The transition economy is a state-led reconfiguration that de-risks private investment by guaranteeing profits, creating markets, and weakening democratic constraints.
- Nicholas Beuret points to contracts for difference, guaranteed markets for heat pumps and EVs, and regulatory roll-backs as mechanisms that secure private returns while shrinking democratic oversight.
War Of Transition Means A Moving Political Terrain
- A war of transition differs from Gramsci's war of position because the terrain itself is in flux, making everyday events instantly political and contested.
- Beuret argues actors must map shifting constituencies (e.g., trade contractors, farmers) rather than seek a fixed institutional foothold.
The Squeeze Connects Cost of Living To Climate Politics
- The squeeze links everyday cost-of-living pressures directly to climate change, compressing incomes, services, and time for politics.
- Beuret uses examples like rising energy bills, higher food prices, and potholes costing drivers hundreds of pounds yearly to show how mundane disruptions contract people's capacity to act.
