The chief executive of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, has suggested that governments should compulsorily purchase private land to build wind and solar farms in order to meet net-zero targets.

In his annual shareholder letter, Dimon said: “The window for action to avert the costliest impacts of global climate change is closing. At the same time, the ongoing war in Ukraine is roiling trade relations across Europe and Asia and redefining the way countries and companies plan for energy security.”

The letter expands on these themes, having set out the urgency and bridged the gap to more radical measures of regulation and finance, Dimon then states: “At the same time, permitting reforms are desperately needed to allow investment to be done in any kind of timely way. We may even need to evoke eminent domain – we simply are not getting the adequate investments fast enough for grid, solar, wind and pipeline initiatives.”

In the US the words eminent domain imply that a government or state agency can use compulsory purchase of private property for public use and compensates the asset holder.

Dimon makes the case that in order for finance to be effectively utilised to fight climate change, legal recourse maty be needed: “Policies like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — that hold the potential to unlock over $1tr in clean technology development — need to be implemented effectively.”

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