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Abstract We examine the roles of Gold and Bitcoin as a hedge, a safe haven, and a diversifier against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the Ukraine War. Using a rolling window estimation of the dynamic conditional correlation (DCC)-based regression, we present a novel approach to examine the time-varying safe haven, hedge, and diversifier properties of Gold and Bitcoin for equities portfolios. This article uses daily returns of Gold, Bitcoin, S&P500, CAC 40, and NSE 50 from January 3, 2018, to October 15, 2022. Our results show that Gold is a better safe haven than the two, while Bitcoin exhibits weak properties as safe haven. Bitcoin can, however, be used as a diversifier and hedge. This study offers policy suggestions to investors to diversify their holdings during uncertain times. Introduction Financial markets and the diversity of financial products have risen in both volume and value, creating financial risk and establishing the demand for a safe haven for investors. The global financial markets have faced several blows in recent years. From the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) to the outbreak of the pandemic and uncertainty regarding economic policy measures of governments and central banks, the financial markets including equity markets around the world were faced with severe meltdowns. This similar behavior was observed in other markets including equity and commodity markets, resulting in overall uncertainty. In this scenario, the investors normally flock toward the safe-haven assets to protect their investment. In normal situations, investors seek to diversify or hedge their assets to protect their portfolios. However, the financial markets are negatively impacted when there are global uncertainties. Diversification and hedging methods fail to safeguard investors’ portfolios during instability because almost all sectors and assets are negatively affected (Hasan et al., 2021). As a result, investors typically look for safe-haven investments to safeguard their portfolios under extreme conditions (Ceylan, 2022). Baur and Lucey (2010) provide the following definitions of hedge, diversifier, and safe haven: Hedge: An asset that, on average, has no correlation or a negative correlation with another asset or portfolio. On average, a strict hedge has a (strictly) negative correlation with another asset or portfolio.Diversifier: An asset that, on average, has a positive correlation (but not perfect correlation) with another asset or portfolio. Safe haven: This is the asset that in times of market stress or volatility becomes uncorrelated or negatively associated with other assets or a portfolio. As was previously indicated, the significant market turbulence caused by a sharp decline in consumer spending, coupled with insufficient hedging opportunities, was a common feature of all markets during these times (Yousaf et al., 2022). Nakamoto (2008) suggested a remedy by introducing Bitcoin, a “digital currency,” as an alternative to traditional fiduciary currencies (Paule-Vianez et al., 2020). Bitcoin often described as “Digital Gold” has shown greater resilience during periods of crises and has highlighted the potential safe haven and hedging property against uncertainties (Mokni, 2021). According to Dyhrberg (2016), the GFC has eased the emergence of Bitcoin thereby strengthening its popularity. Bouri et al. (2017) in their study indicate that Bitcoin has been viewed as a shelter from global uncertainties caused by conventional banking and economic systems. Recent research has found that Bitcoin is a weak safe haven, particularly in periods of market uncertainty like the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis (Conlon & McGee, 2020; Nagy & Benedek, 2021; Shahzad et al., 2019; Syuhada et al., 2022). In contrast to these findings, a study by Yan et al. (2022) indicates that it can function as a strong safe haven in favorable economic times and with low-risk aversion. Ustaoglu (2022) also supports the strong safe-haven characteristic of Bitcoin against most emerging stock market indices during the COVID-19 period. Umar et al. (2023) assert that Bitcoin and Gold are not reliable safe-havens. Singh et al. (2024) in their study reveal that Bitcoin is an effective hedge for investments in Nifty-50, Sensex, GBP–INR, and JPY–INR, at the same time a good diversifier for Gold. The study suggests that investors can incorporate Bitcoin in their portfolios as a good hedge against market volatility in equities and commodities markets. During the COVID-19 epidemic, Barbu et al. (2022) investigated if Ethereum and Bitcoin could serve as a short-term safe haven or diversifier against stock indices and bonds. The outcomes are consistent with the research conducted by Snene Manzli et al. (2024). Both act as hybrid roles for stock market returns, diversifiers for sustainable stock market indices, and safe havens for bond markets. Notably, Bhuiyan et al. (2023) found that Bitcoin provides relatively better diversification opportunities than Gold during times of crisis. To reduce risks, Bitcoin has demonstrated a strong potential to operate as a buffer against global uncertainty and may be a useful hedging tool in addition to Gold and similar assets (Baur & Lucey, 2010; Bouri et al., 2017; Capie et al., 2005; Dyhrberg, 2015). According to Huang et al. (2021), its independence from monetary policies and minimal association with conventional financial assets allow it to have a safe-haven quality. Bitcoins have a substantial speed advantage over other assets since they are traded at high and constant frequencies with no days when trading is closed (Selmi et al., 2018). Additionally, it has been demonstrated that the average monthly volatility of Bitcoin is higher than that of Gold or a group of international currencies expressed in US dollars; nevertheless, the lowest monthly volatility of Bitcoin is lower than the maximum monthly volatility of Gold and other foreign currencies (Dwyer, 2015). Leverage effects are also evident in Bitcoin returns, which show lower volatilities in high return periods and higher volatilities in low return times (Bouri et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2017). According to recent research, Bitcoins can be used to hedge S&P 500 stocks, which increases the likelihood that institutional and retail investors will build secure portfolios (Okorie, 2020). Bitcoin demonstrates strong hedging capabilities and can complement Gold in minimizing specific market risks (Baur & Lucey, 2010). Its high-frequency and continuous trading further enrich the range of available hedging tools (Dyhrberg, 2016). Moreover, Bitcoin spot and futures markets exhibit similarities to traditional financial markets. In the post-COVID-19 period, Zhang et al. (2021) found that Bitcoin futures outperform Gold futures.Gold, silver, palladium, and platinum were among the most common precious metals utilized as safe-haven investments. Gold is one such asset that is used extensively (Salisu et al., 2021). Their study tested the safe-haven property of Gold against the downside risk of portfolios during the pandemic. Empirical results have also shown that Gold functions as a safe haven for only 15 trading days, meaning that holding Gold for longer than this period would result in losses to investors. This explains why investors buy Gold on days of negative returns and sell it when market prospects turn positive and volatility decreases (Baur & Lucey, 2010). In their study, Kumar et al. (2023) tried to analyse the trends in volume throughout futures contracts and investigate the connection between open interest, volume, and price for bullion and base metal futures in India. Liu et al. (2016) in their study found that there is no negative association between Gold and the US stock market during times of extremely low or high volatility. Because of this, it is not a strong safe haven for the US stock market (Hood & Malik, 2013). Post-COVID-19, studies have provided mixed evidence on the safe-haven properties of Gold (Bouri et al., 2020; Cheema et al., 2022; Ji et al., 2020). According to Kumar and Padakandla (2022), Gold continuously demonstrates safe-haven qualities for all markets, except the NSE, both in the short and long term. During the COVID-19 episode, Gold’s effectiveness as a hedge and safe-haven instrument has been impacted (Akhtaruzzaman et al., 2021). Al-Nassar (2024) conducted a study on the hedge effectiveness of Gold and found that it is a strong hedge in the long run. Bhattacharjee et al. (2023) in their paper examined the symmetrical and asymmetrical linkage between Gold price levels and the Indian stock market returns by employing linear autoregressive distributed lag and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag models. The results exhibit that the Indian stock market returns and Gold prices are cointegrated. According to the most recent study by Kaczmarek et al. (2022), Gold has no potential as a safe haven, despite some studies on the COVID-19 pandemic showing contradictory results. The co-movements of Bitcoin and the Chinese stock market have also normalized as a result of this epidemic (Belhassine & Karamti, 2021). Widjaja and Havidz (2023) verified that Gold was a safe haven asset during the COVID-19 pandemic, confirming the Gold’s safe-haven characteristic. As previously pointed out, investors value safe-haven investments in times of risk. Investors panic at these times when asset prices fall and move from less liquid (risky) securities to more liquid (safe) ones, such as cash, Gold, and government bonds. An asset must be bought and sold rapidly, at a known price, and for a reasonably modest cost to be considered truly safe (Smales, 2019). Therefore, we need to properly re-examine the safe-haven qualities of Gold and Bitcoin due to the mixed evidences regarding their safe-haven qualities and the impact of COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine on financial markets. This work contributes to and deviates from the body of existing literature in the following ways. We propose a novel approach in this work to evaluate an asset’s time-varying safe haven, hedge, and diversifier characteristics. This research examines the safe haven, hedging, and diversifying qualities of Gold and Bitcoin against the equity indices; S&P 500, CAC 40, and NSE 50. Through the use of rolling window estimation, we extend the methodology of Ratner and Chiu (2013) by estimating the aforementioned properties of the assets. Comparing rolling window estimation to other conventional techniques, the former will provide a more accurate representation of an asset’s time-varying feature. This study explores the conventional asset Gold’s time-varying safe haven, hedging, and diversifying qualities during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine. We use Bitcoin, an unconventional safe-haven asset, for comparison. Data and Methodology We use the daily returns of three major equity indices; S&P500, CAC 40, and NSE 50 from January 3, 2018, to October 15, 2022. The equity indices were selected to represent three large and diverse markets namely the United States, France, and India in terms of geography and economic development. We assess safe-haven assets using the daily returns of Gold and Bitcoin over the same time. Equity data was collected from Yahoo Finance, Bitcoin data from coinmarketcap.com, and Gold data from the World Gold Council website. Engle (2002) developed the DCC (Dynamic Conditional Correlation)-GARCH model, which is frequently used to assess contagion amid pandemic uncertainty or crises. Time-varying variations in the conditional correlation of asset pairings can be captured using the DCC-GARCH model. Through employing this model, we can analyse the dynamic behavior of volatility spillovers. Engle’s (2002) DCC-GARCH model contains two phases; 1. Univariate GARCH model estimation2. Estimation of time-varying conditional correlation. For its explanation, mathematical characteristics, and theoretical development, see here [insert the next link in “the word here” https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09711023251322578] Results and Discussion The outcomes of the parameters under the DCC-GARCH model for each of the asset pairs selected for the investigation are shown in Table 1.   First, we look at the dynamical conditional correlation coefficient, ρ.The rho value is negative and insignificant for NSE 50/Gold, NSE 50 /BTC, S&P500/Gold, and S&P500/BTC indicating a negative and insignificant correlation between these asset pairs, showing Gold and Bitcoin as potential hedges and safe havens. The fact that ρ is negative and significant for CAC 40/Gold suggests that Gold can be a safe haven against CAC 40 swings. The asset pair CAC/BTC, on the other hand, has possible diversifier behavior with ρ being positive but statistically insignificant. Next, we examine the behavior of the DCC-GARCH parameters; α and β. We find that αDCC is statistically insignificant for all the asset pairs, while βDCC is statistically significant for all asset pairs. βDCC quantifies the persistence feature of the correlation and the extent of the impact of volatility spillover in a particular market’s volatility dynamics. A higher βDCC value implies that a major part of the volatility dynamics can be explained by the respective market’s own past volatility. For instance, the NSE 50/Gold’s βDCC value of 0.971 shows that there is a high degree of volatility spillover between these two assets, with about 97% of market volatility being explained by the assets’ own historical values and the remainder coming from spillover. Thus, we see that the volatility spillover is highly persistent (~0.8) for all the asset pairs except NSE 50/BTC. The results above show that the nature of the dynamic correlation between the stock markets, Bitcoin and Gold is largely negative, pointing toward the possibility of Gold and Bitcoin being hedge/safe haven. However, a detailed analysis is needed to confirm the same by employing rolling window analysis, and we present the results in the forthcoming section. We present the rolling window results for S&P500 first. We present the regression results for Gold in Figure 1 and Bitcoin in Figure 2   Figure 1. Rolling Window Regression Results for S&P500 and Gold.Note: Areas shaded under factor 1 represent significant regression coefficients. In Figure 1, we examine the behavior of β0 (intercept term), β1, β2, and β3 (partial correlation coefficients). The intercept term β0 will give an idea about whether the asset is behaving as a diversifier or hedge. Here, the intercept term shows significance most of the time. However, during 2018, the intercept was negative and significant, showing that it could serve as a hedge during geopolitical tensions and volatilities in the global stock market. However, during the early stages of COVID-19, we show that the intercept is negative and showing statistical significance, suggesting that Gold could serve as a hedge during the initial shocks of the pandemic. These findings are contrary to the results in the study by Tarchella et al. (2024) where they found hold as a good diversifier. Later, we find the intercept to be positive and significant, indicating that Gold could act as a potential diversifier. But during the Russia-Ukraine War, Gold exhibited hedge ability again. Looking into the behavior of β1, which is the partial correlation coefficient for the tenth percentile of return distribution shows negative and insignificant during 2018. Later, it was again negative and significant during the initial phases of COVID-19, and then negative in the aftermath, indicating that Gold could act as a weak safe haven during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gold could serve as a strong safe haven for the SP500 against volatility in the markets brought on by the war in Ukraine, as we see the coefficient to be negative and large during this time. From β2 and β3, the partial correlation coefficients of the fifth and first percentile, respectively, show that Gold possesses weak safe haven properties during COVID-19 and strong safe haven behavior during the Ukraine crisis. Next, we examine the characteristics of Bitcoin as a hedge/diversifier/safe haven against the S&P500 returns. We present the results in Figure 2.   Figure 2. Rolling Window Regression Results for S&P500 and Bitcoin.Note: Areas shaded under factor 1 represent significant regression coefficients. Like in the previous case, we begin by analysing the behavior of the intercept coefficient, which is β0. As mentioned earlier the intercept term will give a clear picture of the asset’s hedging and diversifier property. In the period 2018–2019, the intercept term is positive but insignificant. This could be due to the large volatility in Bitcoin price movements during the period. It continues to be minimal (but positive) and insignificant during 2019–2020, indicating toward weak diversification possibility. Post-COVID-19 period, the coefficient shows the significance and positive value, displaying the diversification potential. We see that the coefficient remains positive throughout the analysis, confirming Bitcoin’s potential as a diversifier. Looking into the behavior of β1 (the partial correlation coefficient at tenth percentile), it is positive but insignificant during 2018. The coefficient is having negative sign and showing statistical significance in 2019, suggesting that Bitcoin could be a good safe haven in that year. This year was characterized by a long list of corporate scandals, uncertainties around Brexit, and tensions in global trade. We can observe that throughout the COVID-19 period, the coefficient is showing negative sign and negligible during the March 2020 market meltdown, suggesting inadequate safe-haven qualities. However, Bitcoin will regain its safe-haven property in the coming periods, as the coefficient is negative and significant in the coming months. The coefficient is negative and shows statistical significance during the Ukrainian crisis, suggesting strong safe-haven property. Only during the Ukrainian crisis could Bitcoin serve as a safe haven, according to the behavior of β2, which displays the partial correlation coefficient at the fifth percentile. Bitcoin was a weak safe haven during COVID-19 and the Ukrainian crisis, according to β3, the partial correlation coefficient for the first percentile (coefficient negative and insignificant). According to the overall findings, Gold is a stronger safe haven against the S&P 500’s swings. This result is consistent with the previous studies of Triki and Maatoug (2021), Shakil et al. (2018), Będowska-Sójka and Kliber (2021), Drake (2022), and Ghazali et al. (2020), etc. The same analysis was conducted for the CAC 40 and the NSE 50; the full analysis can be found here [insert the next link in “the word here” https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09711023251322578]. However, it is important to highlight the respective results: In general, we may say that Gold has weak safe-haven properties considering CAC40. We can conclude that Bitcoin’s safe-haven qualities for CAC40 are weak. We can say that Gold showed weak safe-haven characteristics during the Ukraine crisis and good safe-haven characteristics for the NSE50 during COVID-19. We may say that Bitcoin exhibits weak safe haven, but strong hedging abilities to NSE50. Concluding Remarks In this study, we suggested a new method to evaluate an asset’s time-varying hedge, diversifier, and safe-haven characteristics. We propose a rolling window estimation of the DCC-based regression of Ratner and Chiu (2013). Based on this, we estimate the conventional asset’s time-varying safe haven, hedging, and diversifying properties during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine. For comparison purposes, we include Bitcoin, a nonconventional safe-haven asset. We evaluate Gold and Bitcoin’s safe haven, hedging, and diversifier properties to the S&P 500, CAC 40, and NSE 50 variations. We use a rolling window of length 60 to estimate the regression. From the results, we find that Gold can be considered as a better safe haven against the fluctuations of the S&P 500. In the case of CAC 40, Gold and Bitcoin have weak safe-haven properties. While Bitcoin demonstrated strong safe-haven characteristics during the Ukraine crisis, Gold exhibited strong safe-haven characteristics during COVID-19 for the NSE 50. Overall, the findings indicate that Gold is the better safe haven. This outcome is consistent with earlier research (Będowska-Sójka & Kliber, 2021; Drake, 2022; Ghazali et al., 2020; Shakil et al., 2018; Triki & Maatoug, 2021). When it comes to Bitcoin, its safe-haven feature is weak. Bitcoin, however, works well as a diversifier and hedge. Therefore, from a policy perspective, investing in safe-haven instruments is crucial to lower the risks associated with asset ownership. Policymakers aiming to enhance the stability of financial portfolios might encourage institutional investors and other market players to incorporate Gold into their asset allocations. Gold’s strong safe-haven qualities, proven across various market conditions, make it a reliable choice. Gold’s performance during crises like COVID-19 highlights its potential to mitigate systemic risks effectively. Further, Bitcoin could also play a complementary role as a hedge and diversifier, especially during periods of significant volatility such as the Ukraine crisis. While Bitcoin’s safe-haven characteristics are relatively weaker, its inclusion in a diversified portfolio offers notable value and hence it should not be overlooked. Further, policymakers may consider how crucial it is to monitor dynamic correlations and periodically rebalance portfolios to account for shifts in the safe haven and hedging characteristics of certain assets. Such measures could help reduce the risks of over-reliance on a single asset type and create more resilient portfolios that can better withstand global economic shocks. For future research, studies can be conducted on the estimation of the rolling window with different widths. This is important to understand how the safe-haven property changes across different holding periods. Further, more equity markets would be included to account for the differences in market capitalization and index constituents. This study can be extended by testing these properties for multi-asset portfolios as well. We intend to take up this study in these directions in the future. Data Availability StatementNot applicable.Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.FundingThe authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.ReferencesAkhtaruzzaman M., Boubaker S., Lucey B. M., & Sensoy A. (2021). Is gold a hedge or a safe-haven asset in the COVID-19 crisis? Economic Modelling, 102, 105588. Crossref. Web of Science.Al-Nassar N. S. (2024). Can gold hedge against inflation in the UAE? A nonlinear ARDL analysis in the presence of structural breaks. PSU Research Review, 8(1), 151–166. Crossref.Barbu T. C., Boitan I. A., & Cepoi C. O. (2022). Are cryptocurrencies safe havens during the COVID-19 pandemic? A threshold regression perspective with pandemic-related benchmarks. Economics and Business Review, 8(2), 29–49. 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In a landmark advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on 23 July 2025 that all UN member states have legal obligations under international law to address climate change, which the court described as an existential threat to life on Earth. Powerful countries too must be held responsible for their current emissions and past inaction. Possibly in anticipation of such a ruling, Chris Wright, the US Secretary of Energy and former chief executive of Liberty Energy (an oilfield services company), published an article in The Economist a week earlier, arguing that “climate change is a by-product of progress, not an existential crisis”. Whereas the ICJ relied primarily on the IPCC reports, “which participants agree constitute the best available science on the causes, nature and consequences of climate change”, Wright’s view is based on a particular temporal logic.  According to the IPCC reports, most greenhouse gases come from burning fossil fuels, with additional emissions from agriculture, deforestation, industry, and waste. They drive global warming, which is projected to reach 1.5°C between 2021 and 2040, with 2°C likely to follow. Even 1.5°C is not considered safe for most nations, communities, and ecosystems, and according to IPCC, only deep, rapid, and sustained emission cuts can slow warming and reduce the escalating risks and damages. The 2024 state of the climate report, published in BioScience, presents even more worrying assessments. Among other things, the report cites surveys indicating that nearly 80% of these scientists anticipate global temperatures increasing by at least 2.5°C above preindustrial levels by the end of the century, and nearly half of them foresee a rise of at least 3°C.  Wright’s article suggests that the issue of amplifying doubt about climate change may have little to do with engagement with science but rather reflects a deeper temporal logic. This logic is rooted in a Whiggish account of progress to date, a resistance to the reality of the future and the desire for nostalgic restoration. I will explain these elements one by one. The first tier: Whiggism Wright disagrees with most scientific anticipations. His views are likely representative not only of the Trump II administration but also of conservative right-wing populism more generally. It is difficult to understand their climate denialism without an analysis of their views on time and temporality. The most important question concerns the reality of the future. At the first level, Wright provides a kind of textbook example of Whig history, portraying progress as linear, inevitable, and driven by liberal values. Herbert Butterfield introduced the idea of Whig history in his influential 1931 book The Whig Interpretation of History as a critique of a specific way of writing history that he regarded as flawed and intellectually dishonest. Focusing on inevitable progress distorts historical analysis by promoting simplified cause-and-effect reasoning and selective storytelling, emphasising present-day evaluation (and glorification) over understanding the real causes of historical change. In a Whiggish manner, Wright claims that the last 200 years have seen two big changes to the human condition: “human liberty” and affordable energy. As a result of these two things, life expectancy has nearly doubled, and the percentage of people living in extreme poverty has dropped from 90% to 10%. However, Wright’s argumentation is based on non-contextual and, in that sense, timeless representations of the world, despite its “progressivism”.  For example, consider the claim that extreme poverty has dropped from 90% to 10%. It is based on using a fixed dollar threshold, such as USD 2 per day, to measure poverty over 200 years. This is misleading because most people in the 19th century lived in largely non-monetised economies where subsistence needs were met outside of market exchange, and monetary income was minimal or irrelevant. These metrics also obscure shifting and context-bound definitions of basic needs; rely on incomplete historical data; and ignore the role of colonial dispossession and structural inequality in shaping global poverty. While it is true that life expectancy has doubled, largely due to improvements in hygiene and healthcare, the idea that extreme poverty has plummeted from 90% to under 10% also ignores the fact that the global population has grown eightfold, affecting the entire Earth system with devastating ecological and geological consequences. It further ignores that the rise in life expectancy and poverty reduction has come not only from liberalism or economic growth more generally but from ethical and political struggles and public health interventions. Often, these struggles have been fought in the name of socialism and won despite capitalist incentives, market mechanisms, and related political forces. The second tier: blockism At a deeper level, Wright’s views seem to presuppose what Roy Bhaskar calls “blockism”: the postulation of a simultaneous conjunctive totality of all events. This may sound abstract, but it has been a common assumption among many 20th-century physicists and philosophers that the universe forms a static, closed totality. This view stems from an atomist ontology, where individuals are seen as abstract, events follow regular patterns, time is viewed as spatial, and laws that can be expressed mathematically are considered reversible.  In such a conception, time appears as just another “spatial” dimension. According to the block universe model, the past, present, and future all exist equally and tenselessly. The universe is imagined as a four-dimensional geometric object, like a “block” of spacetime. Time is not something that “flows” or “passes”; instead, all moments are spatially extended points in a timeless whole. Blockism suggests that change and becoming are not truly real but are simply parts of our subjective experience.  The real challenge is to reconcile Whiggism and blockism. Wright is not a theorist and might not need to worry about the coherence of his ideas, but the issue is that Whiggism assumes movement, direction, and a normatively positive evolution of change, whereas the block universe denies real temporality: there is no becoming, no novelty, no agency – only timeless existence. Some versions of the block universe attempt to preserve development by proposing that the block grows. The “block” expands as new events are added to reality, but in this view, the present defines the upper boundary of the block, and the future is not truly real. This appears to be consistent with what Wright says about climate change. Everything he has to say about global warming is limited to one short paragraph: We will treat climate change as what it is: not an existential crisis but a real, physical phenomenon that is a by-product of progress. Yes, atmospheric CO2 has increased over time – but so has life expectancy. Billions of people have been lifted out of poverty. Modern medicine, telecommunications and global transportation became possible. I am willing to take the modest negative trade-off for this legacy of human advancement. From the ICJ’s perspective, this interpretation is dreadful, as the current impacts of climate change are already at odds with the rights of many groups of people. It also exhibits basic injustice, as many of the groups that suffer the most from these impacts have done next to nothing to cause the problem. However, here I am mostly concerned with the temporality of Wright’s claims. This temporality is a combination of Whiggism and blockism: so far, history has exhibited progress, but time and processes stop here, in our present moment. The third tier: nostalgia Wright’s view of time is not limited to an ultimately incoherent combination of Whiggism and blockism. There is also more than a mere hint of nostalgia. This is evident in the appeal of a Golden Age at the outset of his article: I am honoured to advance President Donald Trump’s policy of bettering lives through unleashing a golden age of energy dominance – both at home and around the world. The appeal to the Golden Age somewhat contradicts Whiggism. From a nostalgic perspective, it seems that society has been on a downward trajectory instead of progressing. In other words, regression must be possible. Within an overall Whiggish narrative, one can blame certain actors, such as the Democrats in the US political context, for causing moral and political decline.  A nationalist narrative of a “golden age” and a return to a better past (“making us great again”) is essentially connected to the denial of planetary-scale problems, such as climate change, that would clearly require novel global responses. Climate change from a real-time perspective By merging Whiggism with a block-universe ontology (either static or growing), one ends up with a pseudo-historicism that speaks of “progress” while erasing real time. In a way, such a view “performs change” through a highly selective historical narrative, while denying the ontological preconditions of real change. Real change – emergence, transformation, causation – requires a temporal ontology, where the future is real though not yet fully determined. Thus, there is no mention of global emissions that have continued to rise, their delayed effects, feedback loops, or emergent risks given multiple processes of intertwined changes. Are the basic IPCC models based on real historical time? IPCC models often treat the climate system as a bounded system with internally consistent and deterministic dynamics. The IPCC relies on modelling and uses Bayesian methods to assess uncertainties in climate projections. Bayesian statistics involve updating the probability of a hypothesis as more evidence becomes available, based on prior knowledge (priors) and new data (likelihoods). Such an approach tends to be conservative (based on moving averages, for example) and assumes the quantifiability of uncertainty. It may also convey illusory precision, especially when the underlying models or data are uncertain or incomplete. The IPCC models nonetheless indicate – in contrast to Wright – that the future is real, though the future is approached in a somewhat cautious and deterministic manner. However, many climate scientists go beyond the IPCC consensus by assuming that global heating may reach 2.5 °C or even above 3 °C degree warming by the end of the century.  From a critical scientific realist viewpoint, even such anticipations may be too circumspect. Assuming exponential growth (involving cascading events etc.) and given that recent data shows a rise from 1.0°C to 1.5°C in just 15 years (actual data taken on an annual basis, not moving averages), and using this as a basis for anticipating the future, we seem likely to reach the 2 °C mark in the 2040s and the 3 °C mark in the 2060s.  The plausibility of anticipations depends significantly on how the real openness of the future is treated. Anticipations are reflexive and can shape the future. Real time and historical change involves human freedom and ethics. The evolving universe, where time is real, is stratified, processual, and open-ended. Time involves genuine processes, real possibilities, agency, and emergent structures. Such characteristics indicate that the future is not predetermined but can be shaped by transformative agency.  To sum up, from a real historical time perspective, Wright’s combination of Whiggism, blockism, and nostalgia is a recipe for reactionary politics. Glorifying the present, thinking in a timeless way, and longing for a golden age of the past can play a major role in bringing about a dystopian planetary future.

Abstract To deliver low-carbon transitions, we must understand the dynamics of capital. To this end, I develop a theory of energy-capital relations by reading Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations from an energy-analysis perspective. I argue that, for Smith, capital is any resource used to support production with the intention of generating profits through market exchange. In The Wealth of Nations, capital enables access to new sources of energy and increases energy efficiency. This theory of energy-capital relations explains trends seen in historical energy data: because it is profit driven, capital does not save energy, it redirects it to new uses. This suggests that low-carbon investment can only enable a low-carbon transition if coupled to a systematic challenge to the profit drive.JEL Classification: B12, O44, P18, Q43, Q57Keywordseconomic growth, low-carbon transitions, Adam Smith, history of economic thought, capital, energy, capitalism 1. Introduction: Energy, Capital and Low-Carbon Transitions Under Capitalism To date, the green rhetoric of states and companies has not led to meaningful reductions in carbon emissions. In absolute terms, annual global carbon emissions from fossil fuels increased from ~6 gigatons of carbon per year in 1990 to ~10 gigatons of carbon per year in 2022 (Friedlingstein et al. 2023). Carbon emissions are largely driven by the energy system that supports the capitalist economy, and there is no evidence that this is decarbonizing at the global scale. In 2020, fossil fuels accounted for around 80 percent of total world energy supply, the same figure as in 1990 (IEA 2022). In 2022 carbon emissions from fossil fuels accounted for around 90 percent of total global carbon emissions, up from 80 percent in 1990 (Friedlingstein et al. 2023). Carbon emissions from energy and industrial processes hit an all-time high in 2023 (IEA 2024). To change this increasingly dire picture, it is essential that we understand the economic drivers of emissions, and what economic changes are needed to reverse current trends. There is disagreement over the extent and nature of economic change needed to facilitate a low-carbon energy transition. Radical economists agree that the global reliance on fossil fuels will require going beyond market-based solutions (Li 2011; Pianta and Lucchese 2020; Pollin 2019). But this still leaves us with a broad spectrum of options (Chester 2014). Can a low-carbon transition be implemented within a broadly capitalist framework if it is guided by an interventionist industrial strategy (Pollin 2015)? Or does it require changes to fundamental capitalist dynamics (Davis 2019; Riley 2023)? To cast new light on these debates, I take a step back from the immediate issues and take a history of economic thought approach. To this end, I explore the relationship between capital and energy in Adam Smith’s (1975) The Wealth of Nations. I use the resulting view of energy-capital relations to put forward an explanation of how energy use has developed under capitalism, and to explain why a low-carbon transition is unlikely without addressing core capitalist dynamics. The decision to develop the analysis of energy-capital relations from The Wealth of Nations is grounded in the more general epistemological claim that returning to older works of economic theory is a useful way to conduct economic analysis. Blaug (1990) reminds us that all current economic theory is built from seldom read historical texts, and historians of economic thought have argued that revisiting these texts offers the opportunity to uncover new ways of interpreting key ideas, providing theoretical context that may have been forgotten (Bögenhold 2021; Schumpeter 1954). Additionally, actively engaging with historical thought presents the possibility for moments of creativity as old and new ideas are brought together. For example, Mair, Druckman, and Jackson (2020) use an analysis of economic ideas in utopian texts from the twelfth to nineteenth centuries to develop a vision of work in a post-growth future, and Stratford (2020, 2023) develops a theory of rents and resource extraction grounded in an analysis of the historical evolution of the concept of rent. The general approach of critical engagement with history of thought is perhaps best developed in the Marxist literature, where a substantive body of work draws on Marx’s writings to critically explore environment-economy relationships (e.g., Malm 2016; Moore 2017; Pirgmaier 2021; Saitō 2022). On the other hand, relatively little attention has been paid to Adam Smith in the context of ecological or environmental economic analysis. Most recent interest in Smith’s environmental thought has come from environmental historians (see Steeds 2024 for a review). However, Steeds (2024), building on Jonsson (2014), has made the case for reading Smith as an ecological economist, arguing that Smith shares core ontological precepts of the discipline—notably that it is the environment that underpins all economic activity. Smith (1975) is particularly relevant to debates about low-carbon transitions because The Wealth of Nations is the starting point for an interpretation of capital theory that has become widely used in energy-economy analyses. Capital theory itself has a long and storied history, with analysts giving it a variety of characteristics (Cannan 1921; Kurz 1990; Mair 2022). Contemporary economic analyses of energy generally use a physical concept of capital. A common position for economists who focus on energy is that energy is important because energy use and capital are “quantity complements”: all else equal, when capital increases the energy used in production increases (Elkomy, Mair, and Jackson 2020; Finn 2000; Sakai et al. 2019). Conceived of as “representative machinery,” capital is seen as the physical stuff that channels energy use into production (Keen, Ayres, and Standish 2019: 41). Or as Daly (1968: 397) puts it, “physical capital is essentially matter that is capable of trapping energy and channeling it to human purposes.” This physical conception has its roots in the dominant interpretation of capital from The Wealth of Nations. Prior to The Wealth of Nations, capital was a predominantly monetary construct, but historians of economic thought argue that after The Wealth of Nations, capital is taken to be predominantly physical (Hodgson 2014; Schumpeter 1954). However, I argue that Smith’s view of capital is actually a long way from the almost purely physical views seen in much energy-economy work. Rather, Smith’s view of capital is proto-Marxist. As Evensky (2005: 141) puts it, “Whether or not it was from Smith that Marx developed his notion of capital as self-expanding value, the outlines of that conception were certainly available to him in Smith.” From Smith’s perspective, capital is defined primarily as a socio-physical construct (Blaug 1990; Evensky 2005; Meek 1954). Capital sometimes has physical forms, which enables it to interact with flows of energy, but these are always conditioned by the social dynamics of profit and exchange. Making a direct connection to energy requires reading Smith from the contemporary perspective of energy-economy analysis as developed by the subdisciplines of ecological, biophysical, and exergy economics (Brockway et al. 2019; Jackson 1996; Keen, Ayres, and Standish 2019; Smil 2017a). This is because, as a construct, “capital” pre-dates “energy,” and Smith was writing before the first recorded use of the term energy as we would understand it today (by physicist Thomas Young in 1807, see: Frontali 2014). So although work into energy—particularly among ecological economists and their forerunners in energy systems analysis (Cleveland et al. 1984; Odum 1973; Sakai et al. 2019)—uses a concept of capital that has its roots in an interpretation of Smith’s capital theory, explicit links are missing in Smith’s text. Despite this, Steeds (2024) argues that Smith’s analysis of agriculture shows an understanding of what contemporary analysts would call energy, a theme I develop here focusing on Smith’s conceptualization of capital. The rest of this article is structured as follows. In section 2, I set out an interpretation of Smith’s capital theory from The Wealth of Nations that emphasizes the way it sees physical elements of capital as defined by social forces. In section 3, I outline the ways that energy fits into Smith’s theory of capital. This is the first contribution of the article, as I make novel links between Smith’s capital theory and contemporary energy-economy analysis. In section 4, I apply this interpretation of energy-capital relations to the historical evolution of energy use under capitalism, and the question of low-carbon transitions. This is the second contribution of the article, as I argue that Smith’s capital theory highlights the importance of the social context of energy systems. Specifically, it provides compelling explanations for the phenomenon of “energy additions”—where past “transitions” under capitalism have been associated with the overall growth of energy use (York and Bell 2019). This implies that the challenge of a low-carbon transition is not only investment in low-carbon energy systems but in challenging the logic of capitalism such that low-carbon energy can replace, rather than add to, the use of high-carbon energy. 2. Capital as a Socio-physical Construct in The Wealth of Nations Interpretations of Smith’s capital theory generally emphasize its physical aspects (e.g., Cannan 1921; Hodgson 2014; Schumpeter 1954). These readings focus on Smith’s initial description of capital as a subset of the accumulation of the physical outputs of production (in Smith’s terminology “stock” [cf. Smith 1975: 279]), and the skills and abilities of workers (Smith 1975: 282). The focus on physical aspects of Smith’s capital theory makes sense from a history of ideas perspective. The physical aspects of Smith’s capital stand in contrast with earlier definitions that were primarily monetary (Hodgson 2014). There is also an intellectual lineage that can be traced in Smith’s views on capital, principally through Smith’s relationship with the French Physiocratic school whose own economic analysis emphasized physical flows (Meek 1954; Schumpeter 1954). However, the fact that Smith introduced a new role for physical goods within a broader concept of capital does not imply that Smith’s theory of capital was purely physical (Robinson 1962). Rather, Smith views capital as the accumulated monetary and physical resources that are brought into production to generate a profit. To see this, let us look first at Smith’s view of circulating capital. Smith splits capital into two forms, circulating and fixed, and he is explicit that circulating capital has both monetary and physical forms. For Smith, circulating capital is defined by the fact that to turn a profit from it, its owner must give it up in exchange for something else. Consequently, circulating capital takes multiple forms: it is the money that will be used to pay wages to a worker, the product produced by that worker, the money realized at the point of sale of the product, and the commodities purchased using the money realized. As Smith (1975: 279) puts it, circulating capital is continually going from the capitalist “in one shape, and returning to him in another. . . it is only by means of such circulation. . . that it can yield him any profit.” Circulating capital is a process of purchasing and selling resources, often with a monetary form, in order to make more money (Evensky 2005). Circulating capital has different forms (some physical, some not) at different points in its circulation, but it is consistently capital. Even when capital takes on its physical form, for Smith it is the underlying social dynamics of exchange and profit that define it as capital. In his opening to book 2, Smith argues that capital is an emergent property of exchange-based economies (Smith 1975: 276). In a society with no division of labor, he argues, people are self-sufficient, and there is very little exchange. But once you have a division of labor, you get exchange because each worker uses their labor to produce a subset of the goods needed to live. Other workers use their labor to produce a different subset of goods. The two then trade with one another to ensure all their needs are met. Drawing on the work of the Physiocrats, Smith then observes that production takes time (Schumpeter 1954). Consequently, in a market system, the purchasing of goods from other people “cannot be made till such time as the produce of his own labor has not only been completed, but sold” (Smith 1975: 276). This means that in either a monetary or barter economy, there has to be a stock of physical goods previously accumulated in order to enable work to happen before the products of that work have been sold (or are available for barter). For Smith, these goods are a form of capital. In this sense, capital can be physical commodities—but physical commodities accumulated in order to support exchange. For Smith, profits are also an essential part of the definition of capital (Meek 1954). Whether fixed or circulating, physical or monetary, what makes something capital is the desire of the capitalist to earn money from it (e.g., Smith 1975: 281, 332). Smith’s theory of profit is scattered through The Wealth of Nations and is not entirely comprehensive (Blaug 1990; Christensen 1979). However, Smith does identify a construct called profits with some core tendencies that are sufficient to group him in the classical approach to profit as surplus and deduction (Hirsch 2021; Kurz 1990; Meek 1977). For Smith, surplus is primarily derived from the value that labor adds to raw materials. This value then goes to pay the wages of the worker and other costs of production, one of which is “the profits of their employer” (Smith 1975: 66). So, Smith’s theory of profit is deductive. Profit is the money capitalists attempt to gain back from production after all costs—including wages—have been accounted for (Meek 1977). An important addition here is that the profit drive for Smith is speculative: capitalists bring capital to support production because they “expect” to generate more money (Smith 1975: 279, 332)—it is not guaranteed. The attempt to gain profit is because capitalists use this as their income (cf. Smith 1975: 69, 279). This attempt is central to the dynamics of capital because profit is the “sole motive” that a capitalist has for bringing their resources into the exchange cycle of the economy (Smith 1975: 374). To summarize, for Smith, capital is the accumulated resources (whether physical or monetary) brought to bear in support of exchange-based production, the ultimate aim of which is to provide the owner of capital with an income (profits). Consequently, it is not correct to view Smith’s capital theory as purely or even predominantly physical. Rather Smith’s capital is a socio-physical construct. This interpretation is not a refutation of other readings that emphasize the physical aspect of Smith’s theory. The physical elements are present, are important, and are relevant to our discussion of energy. However, the underlying premise is always that these physical elements are defined by social relations of profits and exchange. This analysis fits with readings of Smith that see his capital theory as proto-Marxist because of the way it frames capital in terms of social relations (Hodgson 2014; Pack 2013; Tsoulfidis and Paitaridis 2012). But it strongly cautions away from discussions of capital that abstract from these social relations in ways that leave capital as purely physical things. As with Marx (2013), when Smith talks about capital as physical things, his focus is on the way the physical interacts with social relations. 3. How Does Energy Fit into Smith’s Capital Theory? Having sketched an interpretation of Smith’s capital theory focusing on the interplay of profit, exchange dynamics, and monetary and physical resources, we can turn to the question of how energy fits into Smith’s capital theory. In this section, I draw on energy-economy analysis to suggest two key ways in which energy might fit into Smith’s capital theory: 1. Capital is used to bring new energy sources into production.2. Capital is used to make existing energy flows more efficient. 3.1. Accessing new energy sources For Smith, one of the key ways that capitalists aim to generate profits from capital is by using it to increase labor productivity (in Smith’s terms “abridging” labor, see: Smith 1975: 17, 282). Here we have a link to energy-economy analysis, where labor productivity is often described in terms of substituting human labor for other forms of energy—since the industrial revolution this has typically happened through some form of fossil fuel–powered machinery (Smil 2017a). Smith discusses machinery in a number of places across The Wealth of Nations. Indeed, Kurz (2010: 1188) writes that one of Smith’s key growth mechanisms is the replacement of “labor power by machine power.” In chapter 11 of book 1 of The Wealth of Nations (Smith 1975: 263), Smith discusses how cloth production in Italy was made more productive than in England by employing wind and water mills in the former, while the latter treaded it by foot. This is the same example pointed to by energy scientist Vaclav Smil (2017a), who argues that the introduction of waterwheels into industrial production were a source of substantive labor productivity growth. Energy-analysis allows us to say why the wind and water is more productive than the treading. Energy provides a variety of functions, known as “energy services,” which are essential for production processes (Grubler et al. 2012). These are intuitive when put in the context of everyday experiences: achieving a comfortable temperature in an office or workplace requires thermal energy. Transporting goods or people requires kinetic energy. In the case of cloth production, the fulling process requires kinetic energy to manipulate the fibers of the cloth. To deliver energy services, energy sources go through a series of transformations, known as the conversion chain (Brockway et al. 2019; Grubler et al. 2012). Energy is accessible to us through different carriers—known as primary energy sources (such as food, oil, or gas). In most use cases primary energy sources are then converted into other forms before delivering their service (Smil 2017b). This conversion is done by “conversion technologies.” Muscles are a “technology” that can be used to convert the chemical energy in food into mechanical energy. Oil or solar energy may be converted into electricity. Different economic processes may use multiple forms of energy with energy from multiple carriers requiring transformation multiple times. From the perspective of increasing labor productivity, what is important is having energy available to do “useful” work (meaning provide the specific energy services that serve the interests of the system) (Brockway et al. 2019). The more energy available to do useful work, the more economic activity can be carried out per person. One way to increase the amount of useful energy available is by adding new primary energy sources to the system. This process often requires new conversion processes that enable the energy in the primary energy sources to be accessed and converted into energy services. In the case of cloth production, the introduction of wind or water mills is an example of capital taking the form of a new conversion technology that enables access to a different primary energy source (Smil 2017b). In the human-powered treading process, solar energy is converted into chemical energy through the agricultural system. The chemical energy in food products acts as the primary energy source. People then eat this food, converting it to mechanical energy that manipulates the cloth as they tread it under foot. On the other hand, a wind or water mill introduces a new conversion technology that enables access to the energy available in wind and water by converting it into mechanical energy. Note that this process is not only about energy efficiency. Wind and water mills are typically more energy efficient than human-power, but just as crucially they are more powerful: they bring a greater quantity of energy into the process of cloth production (Smil 2017b). The importance of scale is seen across energy-economy analysis. Hall and Klitgaard (2012: 117) draw on Polyani’s (1944) substantive definition of an economy to argue that all economic activity is the application of work to transform natural resources into goods and services. In the past, most of the work of transformation was done through muscle-power, but today muscle-power is a much smaller proportion of total work carried out because of the development of machinery that allows us to supplement our muscles with the “‘large muscles’ of fossil fuels.” 3.2. Increasing energy efficiency There are places in The Wealth of Nations where we might hypothesize about energy efficiency gains explicitly. For instance, Smith tells an apocryphal tale involving a child and a fire engine, presented as an example of innovation leading to labor productivity growth. Smith writes that in the earliest fire engines a boy would be employed to open and shut different valves, until one such boy finds a way to connect the valves such that they “open and shut without his assistance” (Smith 1975: 20). Such an innovation adjusts capital in order to enable it to convert more of the primary energy source into useful energy. Prior to the boy’s innovation, the system required two primary energy inputs: the fossil energy to power the machine, and the food energy to power the boy. Once the boy innovates, the primary energy associated with his action is removed from the process and the machine uses only the fossil energy, thus increasing its overall energy efficiency. But machinery is not the only way in which humans’ access and turn energy flows toward growth of the economy in Smith’s capital theory. Smith considers the useful abilities of workers to be a form of capital and here we can see another place where energy efficiency may fit into Smiths capital theory. When defining the useful abilities of workers Smith refers to dexterity: the skills and abilities acquired by workers through the repetition and simplification of tasks. When defining dexterity Smith talks about it in terms of efficiency gains. For example, a worker specializing in the production of nails will become more skilled in their production, and hence more efficient (Smith 1975: 18). But nowhere does Smith imply that an increase in dexterity is miraculous. And although it is intimately bound up with social organization through the division of labor, we can see how energy may fit into the process. Specifically, the increase in dexterity can be understood as partly a function of the fact that energy flows are being used more efficiently. Workers learn the best way to stir the fire, to heat iron and shape the head of the nail. An increase in the skill of a worker enables them to use energy more efficiently. In this way, more efficient use of energy flows can be seen as one of the ways that the division of labor enables increases in productivity. 3.3. Summary of the energy-capital relation in The Wealth of Nations Smith views capital as the monetary and physical resources that are brought by capitalists into exchange processes with the intention of generating an income for themselves. Smith, like Marx, is clear that all production ultimately rests on inputs from the natural environment, so it is not surprising that in The Wealth of Nations we found examples of a subset of capital that generates profits by changing the way energy is used in production processes. Specifically, I presented two mechanisms that can be identified in The Wealth of Nations: bringing new energy sources into the economy (the transition from human power to wind and waterpower in the fulling process), and being made more energy efficient (through machinery innovations and specialization of labor). We can now apply this interpretation of Smith’s energy-capital theory to the question of low-carbon transitions. The examples I have elaborated support Steeds (2024: 35) notion that Smith has an “intuitive” understanding of energy. Some of the critical functions of Smith’s conception of capital can be explained in terms of how it mediates our relationship to energy. In this way, Smith’s reading is close to more modern accounts of the role of energy (Keen, Ayres, and Standish 2019, Sakai et al. 2019). But what differentiates Smith’s from these accounts is an explicit emphasis on the social context in which energy is used by capital. Some accounts of the energy-economy relationship effectively, or explicitly, reduce production to energy use. In Smith’s account by contrast, energy use is framed and shaped by social forces. Recalling Smith’s core understanding of capital from section 2, it is clear that energy is being harnessed by capital in an attempt to generate profits within a market process. In other words, in a capitalist economy where most production follows the logic of capital, the major driver of energy use will be the attempt to generate incomes for the owners of capital. This insight, though simple, is often overlooked and has profound implications for a low-carbon transition. 4. A Smithian Analysis of Low-Carbon Transitions Under Capitalism In this section, I apply the insights from the reading of Smith’s capital theory to historical data on energy use under capitalism. I argue that the theory provides a simple and compelling explanation for the constant expansion of energy use as new forms of energy have been added to the mix. Capitalists seek to use energy to grow their profits; therefore, they invest in efficiency measures or new energy sources in order to increase the total energy available to them. Energy is never saved in the sense of not being used. Rather, it is made available to new profit-seeking ventures. Across both mainstream and radical interventions into low-carbon transition debates, there is often a focus on the investment needed to grow low-carbon and energy efficiency programs (e.g., Hrnčić et al. 2021; Pollin 2015, 2019; Qadir et al. 2021). The central argument in these works is that low-carbon transitions require substantial but not unreasonable levels of investment in low-carbon energy and energy efficiency programs. Approaching this from the perspective of energy-capital relations developed in this article, we are looking at the need to transition capital from one conversion technology to another. Today, much capital takes the form of conversion technologies designed to access the energy in fossil fuels. For a low-carbon economy we need capital to take the form of conversion technologies that can access energy in wind, solar, or other low-carbon forms. It is tempting to think about this in terms of the transition described by Smith from labor power to wind power in the fulling process. However, there is a fundamental difference between the transition from one energy source to another as developed in The Wealth of Nations, and that needed in the low-carbon transition. Historically, transitions between dominant energy sources under capitalism have been consistent with Smith’s argument that capital is only motivated by the desire for profit. Past energy transitions under capitalism have been driven by a search for greater profits enabled by the new energy sources, not by pro-social or pro-ecological values. For example, Malm (2016) argues that the English transition from wood to water was driven by the desire of capitalists to concentrate and better control their workforce, simultaneously reducing losses from theft, making workers more efficient, and bringing a greater scale of energy into the production process. The consequence of the consistent searching for profits in capitalist energy transitions is that we have very few examples of energy sources declining under capitalism at the macro-scale. Under capitalism, energy transitions are better described as energy additions (York and Bell 2019). In recent decades, there has been a remarkable growth in the use of low-carbon energy sources, but at no point in this period has energy production from fossil fuels decreased (figure 1; Malanima 2022). Indeed, looking at the evolution of 9 categories of primary energy sources since 1820 (figure 1), only fodder has seen a prolonged decrease under capitalism. For instance, in absolute terms, energy from coal overtakes fuelwood as the largest primary energy carrier in the late 1800s. But after this point the energy supplied by fuelwood continues to grow. Even in the case of fodder, although it has been in decline for approximately sixty years it still provided more than twice as much energy in 2020 than it did in 1820. Looking specifically at low-carbon fuels, the charts for renewables and nuclear energy show dramatic spikes and rapid growth. But these spikes do not coincide with declines in any other fuel source, and the International Energy Agency (IEA 2023a, 2023b) reports that 2022 was an all-time high for coal production, and forecasts record oil production in 2024.   Figure 2 depicts global energy efficiency, the scale of global production, and the total primary energy use 1820–2018. Energy efficiency of the global capitalist economy has improved drastically over the two-hundred-year period covered: in 2018, producing one unit of output took only 40 percent of the energy it would have taken in 1820. But as energy efficiency has grown, so has total energy use and total output, and these changes dwarf the gains in energy efficiency. In 2018, 41 times as much energy was used as in 1820, while global production grew by 2 orders of magnitude over the same period.   From the lens of our interpretation of Smith’s capital theory, the constant expansion of fossil fuel use alongside renewables and energy efficiency gains is not surprising. The purpose of capital development and deployment in our Smithian lens is to increase income for capitalists by facilitating exchange. So, we would expect capitalists to invest in capital that enables them to access new sources of energy, like renewables, in order to bring a greater scale and quantity of energy into production. But we would also expect them to continue to invest in fossil fuels for the same reasons. More energy means more production means more profit. Likewise, we would expect capitalists to use their capital to increase energy efficiency: this reduces their costs. But we would also expect capitalists to take subsequent energy savings and use them to increase production further. As energy is used more efficiently in any given process, more energy is available to be used elsewhere in the economy or, as new energy sources are brought into production, the old sources are made available for new processes (Garrett 2014; Sakai et al. 2019; York and Bell 2019). As long as the capitalist appetite for greater incomes is present, they will seek to direct energy “savings” into new or expanded forms of production. The practical implication of this theoretical analysis is that investment in low-carbon energy sources and energy efficiency measures—no matter how bold the proposals—will not succeed without a change to the social dynamics of capitalist production. Achieving a low-carbon transition therefore requires the formidable task of coupling a large and sustained investment program in renewables and energy efficiency with a challenge to the structural logic of capital. This requires wide-ranging shifts within capitalist economies to build low-carbon energy infrastructure and develop ways of producing that disrupt the constant profit chasing of capital. The former is required to ensure action can begin now, while the latter is needed to ensure that low-carbon investments do not simply continue to expand the energy base of capitalist production. Elaborating on such possibilities is beyond the scope of this article. However, there are research programs that seek to understand alternatives to profit-driven capitalist production, notably work in post-capitalism and the post-growth/degrowth literatures that identify noncapitalist logics of production (Gibson-Graham 2014; Colombo, Bailey, and Gomes, 2024; Mair 2024; Vandeventer, Lloveras, and Warnaby 2024). A useful future direction for research lies in asking how such non-capitalist modes of production might be scaled and applied to the global energy system. 5. Conclusion In this article I have used a history of economic thought approach to analyze the relationship between energy and capital. Rereading The Wealth of Nations, I argued that Smith’s theory of capital is fundamentally socio-physical. Smith views capital as any accumulated resource that is used to support the exchange cycle of the market economy with the expectation that this will return a profit for the owner of the resource. Based on this reading, I argued that there are two ways in which energy might enter into Adam Smith’s capital theory: (1) capital is used to bring new energy sources into production; and (2) capital is used to make existing energy flows more efficient. Using this view of energy-capital relations, we can explain the major trends in historical energy-capital relations under capitalism. Over the last two hundred years, energy use has grown continuously, and the incorporation of new primary energy sources has not systematically led to reductions in older primary energy sources. This is consistent with the idea that capital is used to bring new energy sources into production. Investment in renewables is what we would expect: renewable energy technology allows capitalists to access new primary energy sources. They use this to generate more profits. They continue to invest in fossil fuel technology for the same reasons. Over the last two hundred years, there have been substantive gains in energy efficiency, and these have not led to reductions in energy use. This is consistent with the idea that capital is used to make energy use more efficient. The motivation of capitalists to make energy more efficient is to be more profitable. They then take energy savings from energy efficiency gains and use these to increase production, in an attempt to make more profits. The implication of this analysis is that investment in low-carbon technology and energy efficiency is the (relatively!) easy part of achieving a low-carbon transition. These dynamics are fundamentally compatible with the logics of capital. The barrier to achieving a low-carbon transition is that as long as this investment takes the form of “capital” (i.e., it chases profits and supports exchange processes), then it is unlikely that investment in renewables or energy efficiency programs will reduce energy use from fossil fuels. To achieve a low-carbon transition we must invest in low-carbon technology and energy efficiency, while simultaneously developing new organizational forms that challenge the capitalist dynamics of expansion and accumulation. AcknowledgmentsI would like to thank Christiane Heisse, Don Goldstein, and Robert McMaster, for their careful reviews and Enid Arvidson for her editorial work, all of which greatly improved the article. I would like to thank participants of the workshops Economic Theory for the Anthropocene (organized by the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity and the University of Surrey Institute for Advanced Studies) and The Political Economy of Capitalism (organized by the Institute for New Economic Thinking Young Scholar Initiative working groups on the Economics of Innovation and Economic History). Particular thanks to Richard Douglas, Angela Druckman, Ben Gallant, Elena Hofferberth, Tim Jackson, Andy Jarvis, Mary O’Sullivan, and Elke Pirgmaier for fruitful discussions. I would like to thank the Marxist Internet Archive for making The Wealth of Nations freely available.Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.FundingThe author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was partly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council through the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainability, grant no. ES/M010163/1.ORCID iDSimon Mair https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5143-8668Note1 The full sources for the Maddison Project Database are Abad and Van Zanden (2016); Álvarez-Nogal and De La Escosura (2013); Baffigi (2011); Barro and Ursúa (2008); Bassino et al. (2019); Bértola et al. (2012); Bértola (2016); Broadberry et al. (2015); Broadberry, Custodis, and Gupta (2015); Broadberry, Guan, and Li (2018); Buyst (2011); Cha et al. 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Introduction Technological innovation is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, reshaping how societies generate energy, transport people and goods, produce food, fight disease, and explore space. Across multiple sectors, groundbreaking solutions are emerging in response to global challenges such as climate change, public health threats, energy insecurity, and resource scarcity. This article examines seven transformative technologies — from wireless electric-vehicle charging roads and regenerative ocean farming to graphene applications and disease-eliminating robots — each demonstrating how science and engineering are redefining sustainability, resilience, and human capability in the 21st century. 1. Wireless Electric Vehicles Charging Roads Electric Vehicles (EVs) have become key technology to decarbonise road transport, a sector that accounts for over 15% of global energy-related emissions. The increase of their sales globally exceeded 17 million in 2024, and it is forecasted to surpass the 20 million units by 2025. (IEA, 2025) Source: IEA analysis based on country submissions and data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), European Alternative Fuels Observatory (EAFO), EV Volumes and Marklines. Despite this growth, several concerns continue to slow down their widespread adoption. Limited charging infrastructure, battery-related autonomy issues, high purchase costs, slow charging times, and the environmental impact of the battery productions remain major obstacle. The broader EV industry, however, is actively developing new technologies to overcome these challenges. (Automotive Technology, 2025) In this context, one of the most pressing challenges is energy supply – specifically, the need for better batteries and more accessible charging points. To address this bottleneck, a promising new trend has emerged: wireless roads capable of charging EVs while they drive. This technology could fundamentally transform the charging experience and significantly reduce dependence on stationary chargers. The idea is simple, a system that supplies power to EVs while driving, using embedded inductive coils (wireless charging) or conductive rails on the road, in other words a dynamic or in-motion charging on the road. In fact, this technology already exists and there are several examples worth mentioning: - South Korea: introduced in 2013, the first road-powered electric vehicle network, in which electrical cables were buried below the surface and wirelessly transfer energy to the electric vehicles via magnetic resonance. An electrified road has the advantage of eliminating the plug-in infrastructure and vehicles usually require a smaller battery, reducing weight and energy consumption. In 2009, KAIST introduced the OLEV (online electric vehicle), a type of EV that uses wireless dynamic charging through inductive coils embedded in the road. The OLEV public transport buses were later used in the 2013 first electric road in the city of Gumi, which consisted of a network of 24 km, by 2015 the number of OLEV buses increased to 12 (Anthony, 2013) and another bus line was launched in Sejong that same year. (SKinno News, 2021)- Sweden: a 1.6 km road linking Stockholm Arlanda airport to a logistic site outside the capital city was a pilot project achieved in 2016. (The Guardian, 2018), (Carbonaro, 2022) However, the Swedish government didn’t stop there and by 2020 they built a wireless road for heavy trucks and buses in the island city of Visby, and they are planning to expand it to the 13-mile E20 highway – logistic hub between Hallsberg and Örebro – and even have a plan of further 3,000 km of electric roads in Sweden by 2035. (Min, 2023), (Dow, 203)- USA: a quarter mile (400 m) section of road through the Corktown area of Detroit was changed to a wireless electric road. Electreon was the company in charge of the project. (Paris, 2024), (6abc Philadelphia, 2025)- France, Norway and China: Electreon – a leading provider of wireless charging solutions for EVs – has partnered and gained projects for wireless highways in France – a section of the A10 highway (Electric Vehicle Charging & Infrastructure, 2023) –, Norway – evaluation of wireless charging for AtB’s BRT routes in Trøndelag (Foster, Electreon to install the first wireless electric road in Norway, 2023) – and China – not wireless but in an 1.8 km electrified highway in Zhuzhou. (Foster, China demonstrates electrified highway, 2023) While all these examples show a “tendency” to switch into wireless roads, it is important to highlight three points to keep that are decisive and have slowed down the transition: in first place, these wireless roads are being targeted mainly for freight trucks and buses, the second point is the initial cost of the infrastructure is high and third point is the technology that should be added to the EVs. 2. Fire Suppression Using Sound Waves Seth Robertson and Viet Tran, engineering students from George Mason University in Virginia designed a fire extinguisher that uses sound waves to put out flames. Their device emits low-frequency sound waves that disrupt the conditions necessary for a fire to sustain itself, meaning that no foam, powder, chemicals or water are needed to extinguish a fire, just sound. In order to understand how it can be possible to extinguish fire with sound it is necessary to remember that a fire needs heat, fuel and oxygen to survive, if one of these elements does not appears, there is no fire, under this principle, Robertson and Tran’s prototype uses sounds to separate the oxygen from the flame, as a result, the fire extinguish. The interesting part is that the sound must have the right frequency, specifically between 30 to 60 Hz – low frequency sounds. The sound waves will act as pressure waves moving the air molecules back and forth, and in the right frequency, the movement will disrupt the flames’ structure, separating the oxygen molecules and the fire will simply die out with the lack of these molecules. Potential applications include small kitchen fires or small fires, while unfortunately, large-scale structural or wildland fires still remain a challenge, mostly due to the environmental factors, like wind, air density and flame intensity, that can be a hurdle in uncontrolled environments. Moreover, the generation of low-frequency sound waves powerful enough to suppress fires requires a significant amount of energy. Nonetheless, an early prototype consists of an amplifier to generate low-frequency sound and a collimator to focus the sound waves directly on the fire, and as mentioned before, one limitation is that specialized equipment is required to produce the high-pressure sound waves. Still, research has been carried out recently and it is expected that this technology could be a non-destructive and less damaging method for firefighters soon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPVQMZ4ikvM 3. Regenerative Ocean Farming Regenerative ocean farming is a climate-friendly model of aquaculture where seaweed and/or shellfish are grown in a way that requires no freshwater, feed or fertilizer, as the crops naturally filter nutrients from the water and capture carbon and nitrogen. This farming model can benefit coastal ecosystems and communities by increasing food security, creating jobs, improving water quality, protecting coastlines, supporting ocean justice (Urban Ocean Lab, 2023) and most importantly, mitigating climate change. Ocean farming can rely on a polyculture system – cultivate a mix of shellfish and seaweeds – or just a single species system. While the climate conditions determine the species to grow, it does not affect the system itself. The system follows a vertical layer farming way, in which farms use ropes that extend vertically from the surface to the seabed, in addition to the use of different levels and cages for scallops, oysters or clams, for example, as shown in Figure 2. Other species like kelp, abalone, purple sea urchins or sea cucumbers can also be harvested. Figure 2: Ocean farming diagram. Source: Urban Ocean Lab The big advantage is the maximization of the ocean space, producing more food in a smaller footprint, in addition to the use of the benefits of the species – seaweed and shellfishes – which are both natural filters that help to clean the water and absorb excess nutrients, combating ocean acidification and reducing marine pollution (Hassan, 2024) naturally. Moreover, the versatility of these species allows them to use them in other areas, such as biofuels, soil fertilizers, animal feed or cosmetics and not only for human food. Around the world, there are several projects that have adopted this methodology (Hassan, 2024): 1. GreenWave (USA): increased biodiversity by 50%, reduced nitrogen level in water by 20% and created sustainable job opportunities for locals.2. Ocean’s Halo (Ireland): annual harvest of 500 tons of kelp, creation of 20 jobs in rural areas and carbon footprint reduction by 30%3. Kitasaku Marine (Japan): Nori production increased by 25%, coastal water quality improved by 15% and local support of 50 locals.4. Catalina Sea Ranch (USA): harvested 1 million pounds of mussels annually, increased local biodiversity by 20% and created 10 new jobs.5. Blue Ventures (Madagascar): harvested 146 tonnes of red seaweed, plus they have created a sea cucumber market with a value of $18,000 and 700 farmers have been trained to farm in the ocean. (Blue Ventures Conservation, 2015)6. Havhøst (Ocean Harvest) (Denmark): they are growing seaweed, mussels and the European flat oyster in 30 communities along the Danish coast. In addition, they focus on educational activities to introduce ocean farming to more people. (Waycott, 2022) Overall ocean farming creates a positive environmental impact; it provides a sustainable food source and economic opportunities for the local people and the industry. Of course it faces challenges, but it has become a way to mitigate climate change and protect the ocean. 4. Wave Energy Generators There are two types of waves. Surface waves are generated by a combination of wind passing over the sea’s surface raising up water and gravity pulling it back down. In a technical way, warm air rises and expands, creating areas of low pressure compared to places with cooler air. Air then moves from high-pressure areas to low-pressure areas. This movement of air is wind and when it rushes across the surface of the Earth it creates waves in oceans. (Lumley, 2025) On the other hand, underwater waves are sound waves produced by earthquakes or volcanic eruptions; these waves travel by compressing and expanding the water. (Kadri, 2025) In both cases temperature variations and other factors can affect the nature of the waves. For instance, wave energy or wave power harnesses the ocean’s waves to generate energy by converting a wave’s kinetic energy into electricity. Wave power is a form of renewable and sustainable energy which has potential cost benefits over solar and wind but faces technological challenges limiting its large-scale adoption in electricity generation and water desalination. (Lumley, 2025) The nature of the waves makes wave energy the world’s largest source of energy with a potential of annual global production of 29,500 TWh, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2012). In addition, it works well in tandem with other renewables such as wind. (Ocean Energy Europe, s.f.) In terms of technology itself, wave energy has relied on the next devices: 1. Point absorbers: floating buoys that capture the vertical movement of waves, which then is harnessed through a cable anchored to the seabed. The vertical movement of the waves is subsequently transformed into electricity via converters (alternators, generators or hydraulic systems). These are usually mounted on the seabed in shallower water and are connected to the floating buoys.2. Oscillating water columns (OWCs): a partially submerged, hollow structure connected to an air turbine through a chamber. These devices use the rise and fall of the waves to compress air, the air is forced to move back and forth in the chamber and creates a strong air flow that powers the turbine, generating electricity.3. Overtopping devices: a floating structure made of segments linked together, which lifts up and down with the waves. These devices harness wave energy by allowing waves to flow into a reservoir, which then releases the water through turbines to generate electricity. Design, flow dimensions, turbine efficiency and structural elements influence their efficiency. Source: BKV Energy Despite its huge potential and considering it as a clean energy source with no GHG emissions, the main concern related to wave energy is the marine life affectation – including habitat alteration, noise pollution or collision risks for marine life. On the other hand, high costs, complex design, maintenance and technological constraints also have become a problem, still, the potential of this continuous energy is huge compared to the more limited wind energy, for example. (Lumley, 2025) Despite all that, there are some active projects being developed in different parts of the world, for example: Azura Wave Power (tested in Hawaii), Anaconda WEC (UK’s prototype), CalWave (in California), CETO (tested in Australia and expected to be tested in Spain too), Crestwing (tested in Denmark), HiWave-5 (Swedish-based tested in Portugal), the Wave Energy Program (in India) or the Ocean Grazer WEC (developed in The Netherlands), among many others. (Wikipedia, 2019) 5. SpinLaunch SpinLaunch is a spaceflight technology development company working on mass accelerator technology to move payloads to space. This innovative space company is known for their Meridian Space and their Suborbital Accelerator. The Meridian Space is a low-cost, highly differentiated LEO satellite communications constellation which offers speed, reliability and flexibility (SpinLaunch, 2025). The company has partnered, and investments have been achieved in order to launch 280 satellites (Berger, 2025) as part of their satellite constellation, which will satisfy the needs in any area needed such as maritime, national security, communications, corporate networks, aviation, military, etc. The highlight of these satellites is their mass that is only 70 kg, and its facility to be launched in one or two rockets. On the other hand, SpinLaunch is aiming to build a kinetic launch system that uses centrifugal force instead of traditional rockets and spins a rocket around at speeds up to 4700 mph (7,500 km/h) before sending it upward toward space. At 60 km or so altitude, the rocket would ignite its engines to achieve orbital velocity. To achieve this, they have built a Suborbital Accelerator prototype, in Spaceport America, New Mexico. This prototype is a 33-meter vacuum chamber that can launch payloads from 800 to 5000 mph. Several tests have already been carried out, being the 10th the latest on September 27th, 2025. (Young, 2025) SpinLaunch hopes to have a 100-meter Orbital Lauch system by 2026. The engineering behind these systems is as follows: both systems are circular accelerators, powered by an electric drive that uses a mechanical arm to sling payloads around in circles to reach incredibly high speeds of up to 5,000 mph. They then release the payload through a launch tube and spaceward. (Young, 2025) The company claims that their method is cheaper as it eliminates 70% of the fuel compared to the traditional rocket launch, in addition, the infrastructure is less, and it is more environmentally friendly than the traditional methods. However, the limitations are seen in the payload weight (no more than 400 kg per payload) and their resistance (payloads must be able to withstand up to 10,000 G’s of force during the centrifugal acceleration process) Source: SpinLaunch. 6. Disease-Eliminating Robots “Disease-eliminating robots” encompass a diverse set of robotic and AI-driven systems designed to prevent, monitor, and treat infectious diseases while minimizing human exposure to risk. These technologies operate at multiple scales — from environmental disinfection in hospitals to microscopic interventions inside the human body. Environmental disinfection robots are among the most established applications. Devices such as Xenex and UVD Robots utilize pulsed ultraviolet (UV-C) light to destroy viral and bacterial DNA, effectively sterilizing hospital rooms within minutes (UVD Robots, 2023; Xenex, 2024). Others deploy vaporized hydrogen peroxide (VHP) to disinfect enclosed environments like train carriages and operating rooms (WHO, 2022). These systems substantially reduce hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) and cross-contamination risks. In medical and clinical settings, robotics contribute to precision and safety. Surgical robots such as Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci and Ion platforms enable minimally invasive operations with reduced infection risk and faster recovery times (Intuitive Surgical, 2024). At the microscopic level, nanorobots are under development for targeted drug delivery, capable of navigating the bloodstream to deliver chemotherapy agents directly to tumor sites, thereby minimizing systemic side effects (Lee et al., 2023). Meanwhile, biofilm-removing microbots are being engineered to eradicate bacterial colonies on medical implants and dental surfaces (Kim et al., 2022). Automated systems are also emerging for precise injections, such as intravitreal therapies for ocular diseases, helping reduce clinician workload and human error (Zhou et al., 2024). Beyond clinical contexts, robots support public health surveillance and disease prevention. Prototypes like MIT’s “Luigi” sewage-sampling robot autonomously collect wastewater data to monitor community-level infections and anticipate outbreaks (MIT News, 2025). In precision agriculture, AI-guided robotic systems detect infected crops early, controlling plant disease spread and protecting global food security (FAO, 2023). Collectively, these robotic systems demonstrate the increasing convergence of automation, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence in safeguarding human and environmental health. By taking on tasks that are dangerous, repetitive, or biologically hazardous, disease-eliminating robots represent a pivotal advancement in the global strategy for infectious disease control and public health resilience. 7. Graphene Graphene is the world’s thinnest material, consisting in a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal honeycomb lattice. Despite its thinnest it is stronger than steel and diamond. In addition, graphene is flexible, transparent, conductive, light, selectively permeable and a 2D material. In summary it is a versatile material with many different applications and that has gained attention since its isolation in 2004 by Russian and Nobel prize scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Nocoselov. (Larousserie, 2013) The characteristics of graphene make them an important player in the energy, construction, health and electronics sectors. In a deeper analysis, its high conductivity is valuable for battery life, autonomy and energy efficiency. Its lightness is suitable for manufacturing drone batteries, which reduce their weight, and the drone’s weight too. Graphene’s transparency and flexibility could be used in screen devices including cell phones, televisions or vehicles – Samsung already produced a flat screen with graphene electrodes. In addition, its high resistance and excellent heat and electric conductivity make them valuable for the light industry. Other sectors that are beneficial from graphene include the construction and manufacturing sector. For example, adding 1 g of graphene to 5 kg of cement increases the strength of the latter by 35%. Another example refers to Ford Motor Co., that is adding 0.5% of graphene to increase their plastic strength by 20%. (Wyss, 2022) Graphene has become a promising material, and it has been studied and tested to be used as a replacement or equivalent of silicon in microelectronics. It has been used in sports, like tennis rackets made by Head or in electric cars concepts like BASF and Daimler-Benz Smart Forvision. Bluestone Global Tech partnered with mobile phone manufacturers for the first graphene-based touchscreen to be launched in China. (Larousserie, 2013) Paint with graphene for a better thermal regulation in houses; bones, prosthesis, hearing aids or even diagnosis of diseases could also rely on graphene. (Repsol, 2025) Nowadays, its costs are high, but the graphene is going through a moment of intense academic research that surely in some years will end up with even more promising results and applications. Conclusion Together, these seven emerging technologies form a powerful snapshot of the future. Their diversity — spanning transportation, renewable energy, aquaculture, aerospace, robotics, and advanced materials — reflects the multi-sectoral nature of today’s global challenges. 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