To many, relying on markets and the pricing mechanism to drive the transition away from fossil fuels – which, in terms of broad approach, is what the world widely and increasingly is doing – is itself problematic enough. Markets are not only impersonal and faceless; they are also unaccountable. Should not someone, or rather some democratically elected institutional collective of someones, be taking responsibility? One of the big problems, surely, with market-coordinated processes is that people cannot ask markets why they are doing things in a certain way. Nor can people ask markets why they messed up when things go awry. Market mechanisms preclude accountability. But arguably, relying on a small coterie of big-tech companies, and their idiosyncratic energy-purchasing habits, to drive the transition away from fossil fuels seems, in political terms, even more problematic. One can quite imagine that, for many environmental and anti-monopoly activists, perhaps the only thing worse than nobody being responsible for driving and shepherding the energy transition would be Amazon, of all firms, being so responsible. Yet, to the degree that corporate PPAs are indeed being called upon to supplant government support mechanisms in catalysing renewables investment, this, effectively, is more or less the reality with which we increasingly are faced. It would be difficult to conceive of a more ironic statement on the warped political economy of contemporary green capitalism.

— The Price Is Wrong by Brett Christophers