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Climate

Climate Crisis: Social Science Crisis

by Larry Lohmann

article | published July 2008 | summary | PDF

It's sometimes said that governments are failing to address climate change because they aren't taking the warnings of natural scientists seriously enough. In fact, as this draft chapter suggests, the failures may have more to do with lack of social science understanding -- in particular, with lack of appreciation of how the type of social change required actually takes place.

Gas, Waqf and Barclays Capital A Decade of Struggle in Southern Thailand

by Larry Lohmann

article | published June 2008 | summary | PDF

Slowing and halting new fossil fuel developments has moved to the top of the global climate change agenda. But what are the obstacles to, and resources for, such a project? The 10-year struggle against a gas development project in one corner of Southeast Asia, described in this forthcoming article for the journal Race & Class, offers lessons in some of the complexities.

Carbon Trading, Climate Justice and the Production of Ignorance Ten Examples

by Larry Lohmann

article | published May 2008 | summary | PDF

Carbon trading programmes such as the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and the Kyoto Protocol have 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. Part of this process is the creation of ignorance, argues this article forthcoming in the journal Development.

Carbon Trading: Solution or Obstacle?

by Larry Lohmann

article | published May 2008 | summary | PDF

More and more commentators are now recognizing that carbon markets are failing to address the climate crisis. But more discussion is needed of why this is so, and how the way might be cleared for more effective approaches.

A Chicago Conversation on Carbon Trading (video)

by Larry Lohmann

talk | published April 2008 | full document

A discussion hosted by the Climate Justice Chicago Coalition at De Paul University examines how carbon trading creates transferable rights to dump carbon, slows social and technological change, promotes socially and ecologically destructive practices and is ineffective and unjust. This TV programme was produced by Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV).

Toward a Different Debate in Environmental Accounting The Cases of Carbon and Cost-Benefit

by Larry Lohmann

article | published February 2008 | summary | full document | PDF

Al Gore and many other mainstream environmentalists suggest that calculating and internalizing 'externalities' is the solution to environmental problems. Some critics counter that the spread of market-like calculations into 'nonmarket' spheres is itself a cause of environmental problems. In the course of a study of two real-world examples, carbon accounting and cost-benefit analysis, this article (forthcoming in Accounting, Organizations and Society) proposes a possible way of getting beyond this stalled debate.

How Carbon Trading Undermines Positive Approaches to the Climate Crisis

by Larry Lohmann

talk | published March 2008 | summary | PDF

Carbon trading proponents often assert that trading is merely a way of finding the most cost-effective means of reaching an emissions goal and a source of funding that leaves everything else exactly as it is. In fact, carbon trading undermines a number of existing and proposed positive measures for tackling climate change

Carbon Trading: A Lecture at Brigham Young University (video)

by Larry Lohmann

talk | published February 2008 | full document

A Vermont Meeting on Carbon Trading (video)

by Jutta Kill, Brian Tokar and Larry Lohmann

article | published January 2008 | summary

A two-hour discussion on climate politics and carbon trading at the Unitarian Church, Montpelier, Vermont, on 28 January 2008, with Jutta Kill, Brian Tokar and Larry Lohmann, videoed by Orca Productions.

Privatization of the Air Turns Lethal Pay-to-Pollute Principle Kills South African Activist Sajida Khan

by Patrick Bond

article | published December 2007 | summary | PDF

The passing of Durban environmentalist Sajida Khan calls attention to the life-and-death consequences of the climate justice struggle. If South Africans are to be at the cutting edge of progressive climate activism, not partners in the privatization of the atmosphere, three citizens' networks -- environmentalists, community groups, and trade unions -- must join forces to identify the contradictions within both South African and global energy sector policies and practices and help synthesize modes of resistance.

A Death in Durban Capitalist Patriarchy, Global Warming Gimmickry and our Responsibility for Rubbish

by Patrick Bond and Rehana Dada

article | published October 2007 | summary | PDF

Sajida Khan, an environmental activist based in Durban, South Africa, who died in July 2007, dedicated her life to fighting international corporations and local municipalities over the pollution and environmental degradation of her community. An interview with Khan about her views on environmental justice and possible ways forward to create healthier livelihoods is included.

Who are the Climate Leaders? An Article for Red Pepper

by Larry Lohmann

article | published August 2007 | summary | PDF

The European Union, the US and big business are vying with each other to be recognized as taking serious action on climate change. But some of the most important leaders on climate change are groups fighting fossil fuel projects at the grassroots in places such as southern Thailand.

The Carbon Neutral Myth Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins

by Kevin Smith

report | published February 2007 | summary | PDF

Buying "carbon offsets" to "neutralize" your carbon emissions is all the rage in middle-class society in Europe and North America. This book, published by Carbon Trade Watch, explains why offsets are not a constructive approach to climate change.

Pictures from the Carbon "Offset" Market: Part 2

by Larry Lohmann

presentation | published September 2007 | summary | PDF

Featuring photographs by Tamra Gilbertson, Nishant Male and Franceso Zizola, this slide show continues the series portraying the practical, on-the-ground effects of the trade in carbon credits through the United Nations' Clean Development Mechanism and the voluntary "offset" market.

The Limits of Free Market Logic

by Kevin Smith

article | published September 2007 | summary | PDF

Carbon trading, its backers claim, reduces emissions and brings sustainable development in the global South. But in fact it may do neither, and is harming efforts to create a low-carbon economy. A Chinese version is appended.

Trading Our Way into Trouble? An Article from Environmental Finance magazine

by Christopher Cundy

article | published May 2007 | summary | PDF

For carbon trading advocates, the onward march of "cap and trade" schemes seems unstoppable. But a growing chorus of critics believes otherwise.

Interview with Com Ciencia magazine

by Larry Lohmann

article | published March 2007 | summary | PDF

This interview with a Brazilian science magazine touches on the nature of technical fixes for global warming, the US role in formulating the Kyoto Protocol, and how carbon trading is wasting time that could be better spent on other approaches to climate change. A Portuguese version is appended.

Pictures from the Emissions Market

by Larry Lohmann

presentation | published Spring 2007 | summary | PDF

Emissions trading constitutes one part of carbon trading schemes such as those associated with the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and the Kyoto Protocol. Emissions trading delays structural transition away from fossil fuels, hands out large assets to the biggest polluters, and cannot be enforced globally.

Pictures from the Carbon "Offset" Market

by Larry Lohmann

presentation | published Spring 2007 | summary | PDF

Trading in carbon "offsets", which constitutes one part of carbon market arrangements such as the Kyoto Protocol, is ineffective and generally exacerbates local problems. This slide show offers some disturbing photographic evidence.

Relearning Humility in a Time of Climate Change An Article for 1400 Sahitya

by Larry Lohmann

article | published July 2007 | summary | PDF

Under pressure to "tame" the threat of climate change to make it seem compatible with business as usual, many scientists have joined policymakers, economists and journalists in treating ignorance and uncertainty about climate as calculable "probabilities". Carbon traders, too, are forced to treat unknowns (and unknowables) as if they were calculable.

Pollute and Profit

by Kevin Smith

article | published May 2007 | summary | PDF

When will it be publicly admitted that the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme is not working?

The Struggle of Villagers in Chana District, Southern Thailand in Defence of Community Land and Religion against the Trans Thai-Malaysian Pipeline and Industrial Project (TTM) 2002-2007

by Chana activists and others

report | published May 2007 | summary | PDF

For many years, Southern Thai Muslim communities have been fighting a destructive gas development backed by Barclays and other foreign banks that has violated their human, religious, environmental and land rights alike. In words and pictures, this book recounts their struggle.

Aid, the Clean Development Mechanism and Some Open Questions An Article for Development Today

by Soumitra Ghosh

article | published May 2007 | summary | PDF

The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism is claimed to "promote sustainable development" in the South at the same time it gives Northern industries licenses to continue polluting. But the skepticism with which countries with colonial pasts have always viewed such "aid" is also warranted here.

Carbon Offsets Not Welcome Here An Article for Climate Change Corp

by Larry Lohmann

article | published February 2007 | summary | PDF

Corporations seeking a good image in an era of climate change will steer clear of "carbon offset" projects, which are mostly propping up polluting and oppressive industries in the South. Instead, they will push for structural, long-term social changes that can help keep coal, oil and gas in the ground.

Carbon Trading A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power

by Larry Lohmann (editor)

report | published October 2006 | summary | PDF

The globe is warming. The more carbon dioxide pours into the air, the less stable the climate becomes and the more urgent it becomes to leave remaining fossil fuels in the ground. Yet the dominant neoliberal approach to the crisis -- carbon trading -- is failing. It is slowing social and technological change; dispossessing ordinary people in the South of their lands and futures; undermining already-existing positive approaches; and prolonging industrialised societies' dependence on fossil fuels. This book lays out the case and describes what can be done.

Carry on polluting Comment and analysis in New Scientist

by Larry Lohmann

article | published December 2006 | summary | full document | PDF

Far from being a solution to global warming, carbon trading is little more than licence for big polluters to carry on business as usual, says Larry Lohmann in this 'Comment and analysis' article in New Scientist magazine.

Kyoto: A False Consensus? Interview with Red Pepper

by Larry Lohmann

article | published November 2006 | summary | PDF

The debate over how serious global warming is hides a more important conflict over who is to own the earth's ability to regulate its climate. From this perspective, George Bush and supporters of the Kyoto Protocol are on the same side. Both are working to entrench the rights and privileges of big polluters.

'Made in the USA': A short history of carbon trading Chapter 2 of Carbon Trading:A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power

by Larry Lohmann (editor)

report | published October 2006 | summary | PDF

Chapter 2 of the book, "Carbon Trading", tells the extraordinary story of how corporations, academics, governments, United Nations agencies and environmentalists united around a neoliberal or 'market' approach to climate change emanating from North America. They made pollution trading -- a little-tested, highly-theoretical instrument designed merely to save industrial polluters money in the short-term -- the centrepiece of international efforts to tackle climate change.

Lessons unlearned: Pollution trading's failures Chapter 3 of Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power

by Larry Lohmann (editor)

report | published October 2006 | summary | PDF

Chapter 3 of the book, "Carbon Trading", explains why carbon trading -- one of the largest world markets ever created -- is ineffective in dealing with the climate crisis. It demonstrates that the experience of the United States in pollution trading is an argument against, rather than for, making carbon markets the centrepiece of action on global warming. It explores property rights and privatisation; emissions trading vs. structural change; and the special problems of carbon projects.

Offsets: The fossil economy's new arena of conflict Chapter 4 of Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power

by Larry Lohmann (editor)

report | published October 2006 | summary | PDF

Chapter 4 of the book, "Carbon Trading", describes how supposedly carbon-'saving' projects set up in countries of the South to 'compensate' for continued fossil fuel use are helping to disposses ordinary people of their land, water, air -- and their futures. Projects to plant trees, burn methane from waste dumps, improve efficiency and promote renewable energy are described in ten countries, together with the tensions and conflicts created.

Ways forward Chapter 5 of Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power

by Larry Lohmann (editor)

report | published October 2006 | summary | PDF

Chapter 5 of the book, "Carbon Trading", dissects and sets aside the claim that "there is no alternative to carbon trading". It cites conventional regulation, public works, legal action, green taxes, popular movements against fossil fuel use, and the shifting of subsidies away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy. For a more democratic and effective climate politics, the debate over climate needs to be conducted not only by corporations, ministries, specialists and big NGOs but by a wider public as well.

Introduction: A new fossil fuel crisis Chapter 1 of Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power

by Larry Lohmann (editor)

report | published October 2006 | summary | PDF

Chapter 1 of the book, "Carbon Trading", traces the growing climate crisis to the mining of coal, oil and gas, and describes the growing political conflict over how to divide up the world's capacity to clean its atmosphere. It outlines the dangers of the crisis to people's survival and livelihoods, explores the political nature and implications of the problem, and sketches reasonable and unreasonable solutions. The flow of fossil carbon out of the ground, it points out, has to be slowed and ultimately halted.

Carbon Trading and the World Rainforest Movement How to Respond to a Proposed New Export Market?

by Larry Lohmann

article | published December 2005 | summary | PDF

The new export market in biological carbon-cycling capacity is likely to have effects similar to export markets in soya, paper pulp, petroleum, timber, palm oil, maize, bananas, coffee or tourism. What are the best ways of encouraging discussion among affected communities about this new form of globalisation? asks this article for the World Rainforest Movement Bulletin.

Sakhalin II (Phase 2) Compliance Review Assessment Against ECGD Policies on Project Acceptability

by The Corner House, Friends of the Earth (England, Wales and Northern Ireland), WWF-UK

submission | published February 2006 | summary | PDF

Any ECGD support for the Anglo-Dutch petrochemical multinational Shell to develop two oil and gas fields off Sakhalin Island in Russia's Far East would breach international guidelines and conflict with the UK's sustainable development commitments and its international environmental obligations.

Climate Talks in Montreal Can we save the planet?

by Brian Tokar

article | published February 2006 | summary | full document

An accessible article from "Z Magazine" describing the key issues of global climate change discussed at last year's climate negotiations in Montreal.

Turbo-Charging Investor Sovereignty Investment Agreements and Corporate Colonialism

by Nicholas Hildyard and Greg Muttit

article | published February 2006 | summary | full document | PDF

Many corporations now rely on bilateral and regional treaties to get what they want in other countries. Some companies are using Host Government Agreements to set up a specific legal framework giving them effective control over national legislation and regulations affecting their activities. Oil and gas companies are using Production Sharing Agreements to gain almost complete control over natural resources in the countries of the former Soviet Union and West Africa and in Iraq.

Climate Politics After Montreal Time for a Change

by Larry Lohmann

article | published January 2006 | summary | full document | PDF

Carbon markets are not helping to phase out fossil fuels and are thus not helping to tackle global warming, this article for Foreign Policy in Focus argues.

Making and Marketing Carbon Dumps Commodification, Calculation and Counterfactuals in Climate Change Mitigation

by Larry Lohmann

article | published September 2005 | summary | full document | PDF

The Kyoto Protocol and kindred carbon trading measures are usually presented as a small but indispensable step forward to mitigate climate change. Are they? Or, as this article for the journal Science as Culture asks, do they amount to a stumble backwards and a block to the emergence of more constructive approaches?

Trouble in the Air Global Warming and the Privatised Atmosphere

by Patrick Bond and Rehana Dada (editors)

report | published October 2005 | summary | full document | PDF

This book, from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, outlines some of the practical threats to public well-being and climatic stability that arise from the growing fashion for carbon trading. It focuses on the disturbing record of South African "carbon-saving" projects and their role in shoring up a destructive oil economy.

Memorandum to the Inquiry into the International Challenge of Climate Change: UK Leadership in the G8 and EU

by The Corner House, SinksWatch and Carbon Trade Watch

paper | published October 2004 | summary | full document | PDF

International carbon trading systems are failing. They are both climatically ineffective and politically infeasible.

27. The Origins of the Third World Markets, States and Climate

by Mike Davis

briefing | published December 2002 | summary | full document | PDF

A revised understanding of nineteenth cenutry famines illuminates many current challenges of 'development' and questions the wisdom of development policies still pursued today.

The ECGD, Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Recommendations from Friends of the Earth to the ECGD

by Kate Hampton, Friends of the Earth

seminar | published May 2002 | summary | full document

In 2001, governments agreed that export credit agencies should support the transfer of climate-friendly technologies. Urgent institutional reform is needed if Britain is to fulfil its commitment.

The Kyoto Protocol Neocolonialism and Fraud

by Larry Lohmann

talk | published April 2002 | summary | full document

The Kyoto Protocol is not a step forward in the struggle to stabilise climate, but a stumble sideways into spurious science and the privatization of the atmosphere.

Submission to The UK Parliament’s International Development Committee’s Inquiry into Global Climate Change and Sustainable Development

by The Corner House

submission | published January 2002 | summary | full document

24. Democracy or Carbocracy? Intellectual Corruption and the Future of the Climate Debate

by Larry Lohmann

briefing | published October 2001 | summary | full document | PDF

The Carbon Shop Planting New Problems

by Larry Lohmann

article | published 2000 | summary | full document

Shopping for Carbon A New Plantation Economy

by Larry Lohmann

article | published May 2000 | summary | full document

18. Fire Planet The Politics and Culture of Combustion

by Stephen J. Pyne with Larry Lohmann

briefing | published February 2000 | summary | full document

Ethnic Discrimination in “Global” Conservation

by Larry Lohmann

talk | published February 2000 | summary | full document | PDF

15. The Dyson Effect Carbon ‘Offset’ Forestry and The Privatization of the Atmosphere

by Larry Lohmann

briefing | published July 1999 | summary | full document

This briefing questions the view that tree plantations are a viable way of mitigating the climatic effects of industrial carbon-dioxide emissions. This “solution” to global warming is based on bad science, enlarges society’s ecological footprint, and reinforces neo-colonialist structures of power.

03. Climate and Equity after Kyoto

by Aubrey Meyer and Nicholas Hildyard

briefing | published December 1997 | summary | full document


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