Carbon Trading, Climate Justice and the Production of Ignorance
Ten Examples
first published 18 August 2008
The idea that global warming can be addressed by turning hitherto unpriced greenhouse gas pollution dumps into a tradable, ownable commodity has helped mobilize neoclassical economics and development planning in new projects of dispossession, speculation, rent-seeking and the redistribution of wealth from poor to rich and from the future to the present. A central aspect of this process has been the creation of new domains of ignorance. This article for the journal Development cites ten processes of ignorance-creation facilitated by the new carbon markets, focusing particularly on the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. It then asks what the quest for climate justice becomes once it is incorporated into a development or carbon market framework. It has been translated into French, "Commerce du carbone, justice et ignorance", and published in Écologie & Politique. Related articles of interest:
- Mausam (issues 2-5) Talking Climate in Public Space
- Carbon Trading How It Works and Why It Fails
- Neoliberalism and the Calculable World The Rise of Carbon Trading
- Uncertainty Markets and Carbon Markets Variations on Polanyian Themes
- The CO2 Alibi (video)
- A Death in Durban Capitalist Patriarchy, Global Warming Gimmickry and our Responsibility for Rubbish
- Carbon Trading: Solution or Obstacle?
- Toward a Different Debate in Environmental Accounting The Cases of Carbon and Cost-Benefit
- Pictures from the Carbon "Offset" Market: Part 2
- The Carbon Neutral Myth Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins
- Carbon Trading A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power
- Making and Marketing Carbon Dumps Commodification, Calculation and Counterfactuals in Climate Change Mitigation
- Missing the Point of Development Talk Reflections for Activists
- Mekong Dams in the Drama of Development