Carbon Markets in a Climate-Changing Capitalism

Description

The promise of harnessing market forces to combat climate change has been unsettled by low carbon prices, financial losses, and ongoing controversies in global carbon markets. And yet governments around the world remain committed to market-based solutions to bring down greenhouse gas emissions. This book discusses what went wrong with the marketisation of climate change and what this means for the future of action on climate change. The book explores the co-production of capitalism and climate change by developing new understandings of relationships between the appropriation, commodification and capitalisation of nature. The book reveals contradictions in carbon markets for addressing climate change as a socio-ecological, economic and political crisis, and points towards more targeted and democratic policies to combat climate change. This book will appeal to students, researchers, policy makers and campaigners who are interested in climate change and climate policy, and the political economy of capitalism and the environment. Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Paradox in Paris A Short History and Overview of Carbon Markets Mainstream and Critical Approaches to Carbon Markets Carbon Markets as Least Cost Emissions Reductions Carbon Markets as Accumulation Strategy Carbon Markets as Politics Chapter Outline 1 Conceptualising Carbon Introduction 1.1 Climate Change as Market Failure 1.1.1 Pigou: Externalising Carbon Pollution 1.1.2 Coase: Universalising Climate Action 1.1.3 The Economic Ideology of Nature 1.2 Climate-Changing Capitalism 1.3 Mapping the Appropriation of Carbon in the EU ETS 1.3.1 The Social Organisation of Carbon 1.3.2 The Spatial Organisation of Carbon 1.3.3 States and the Socio-Spatial Organisation of Carbon Conclusion 2 Internalising Carbon Introduction 2.1 The Development of the EU ETS 2.1.1 International, EU, and National Contexts 2.1.2 Government, Industry, and NGO Positions 2.1.3 Creating a ‘Level Playing Field’ 2.2 The Carbon Commodity 2.2.1 Commodifying Nature 2.2.2 The Installation–Emissions Relationship 2.2.3 Equalising (Some) Difference 2.3 Trading Carbon Allowances 2.3.1 RWE’s Trading Strategy 2.3.2 RWE’s Allowance Trading Conclusion 3 Externalising Carbon Introduction 3.1 The Development of the CDM and JI 3.1.1 The ‘Kyoto Surprise’ 3.1.2 The Linking Directive 3.2 The Spatio-Temporal Fix 3.2.1 Capitalist Crisis and the Spatial Fix 3.2.2 Carbon Offsetting as a Spatio-Temporal Fix 3.3 Trading Carbon Credits 3.3.1 E.ON’s Offset Strategy 3.3.2 E.ON’s Offset Trading Conclusion 4 Valuing Carbon Introduction 4.1 Trading Carbon 4.1.1 The Financial Infrastructure of Carbon Trading 4.1.2 The Rise and Fall of Carbon Trading Profits 4.2 Finance, Nature, and Value in Carbon Markets 4.2.1 Carbon Markets as Accumulation Strategy 4.2.2 Carbon as Rent 4.2.3 Carbon as Capital 4.3 Capitalising Carbon 4.3.1 Carbon as Credit 4.3.2 Carbon as Collateral 4.3.3 Carbon as Risk Conclusion 5 Contesting Carbon Introduction 5.1 Reforming the EU ETS 5.2 The Techno-Politics and Post-Politics of Carbon Markets 5.2.1 The (Techno-)Politics of Market Design 5.2.2 Post-Politics as De-Politicisation 5.2.3 States, Value, and Nature 5.3 Contesting the ‘Value’ of Carbon 5.3.1 The Reach of Value: Industrial Gas Offset Restrictions 5.3.2 The Force of Value: Managing Allowance Supply 5.3.3 The Priority of Value: 2030 Climate and Energy Package Conclusion Conclusion References Index