Capitalism is probably one of the most misunderstood things in the world right now. Neither the right wings nor the left wings seem to understand what a free market is, what it looks like, or whether or not we live in one.
A free market is free, seems obvious right? So we should have neo-liberals of all types, especially economists, telling our government that we need to take out all regulations and reduce taxes as much as possible. Well the latter is more or less true, everyone hates taxes but the neo-liberals are really only concerned about commerce and corporate related taxes.
Rules and regulations... Completely different story. Rules and regulations restricting the key businesses from exploiting others need to go, but they love their protectionism. Bail-outs are a must, subsidiaries as well. The government needs to buy all of the crap military contractors sell, and lo and behold if another country stops buying your stuff we need to go to war. Pure capitalism would let these giant businesses fall under their own weight, and when they attempt to interfere with gov't policy, the capitalists would rise in outrage. We live in some sort of mixed economy oligarchy, the people in power are the ones who profit from oil, they profit from the destruction of ecosystems, and they actually profit from climate change. There is no way our current system, or what we call "capitalism", is going to help us mitigate climate change.
Would pure capitalism help? Actually, I think so. Having just read a condensed version of the Wealth of Nations, I have a pretty good grasp on what capitalism Should look like, or at least what Smith thought it should look like. A free market would be free of any gov't influence, even if there were food shortages or rampant inflation/deflation or stock market crashes. The free market takes care of itself, that's one of the most basic principles of capitalism. The free market will also always take care of peoples needs, because people know what they need and they buy it on... the free market! This means that pure capitalism would have educated smart labourers that know that climate change is a bad thing. They therefore naturally shift the market to greener/sustainable technologies and products. The big bad oil companies would have the greatest profit margins on their products, but the free market would dictate that no-one smart would buy them. At least, that's what I assume would happen.
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