the dark side of the carbon market
i’ve been in a few not lengthy but sort of serious debates with people about the effectiveness of carbon trading/the carbon market. people who believe that it is THE way to make people care about global warming because it ties monetary values to emissions. but what i’ve always felt is that the financial trading is sort of a way to allow higher polluters to pay their ways out and not have to change anything, sort of like allowing industrial polluters to just pay fines but not change their actions (a huge issue here in the SF bay).
this article in The Nation (and yes i am aware of the reputation of that publication) makes some pretty grim statements about the carbon market, the corruption taking place, and how it sort of reeks of other Rich Nation schemes that say they will help the poorer ones but then don’t (NAFTA).
When money is on the table, there can be plenty to fight about. And right now there is a hefty wad of cash being dangled before governments and NGOs that comes with a catch: accept carbon trading as the deal or get nothing at all. Even so-called adaptation funding, arguably the largest piece of the pie, if done correctly, is being proffered to cash-poor countries–but only as a percentage of the carbon-trading budget. The message: accept carbon trading or your poor will starve.
…But here’s the deal: carbon trading is not some innocuous attempt at climate stability. It is the neoliberal agenda writ large. Countries that are already on the treadmill of debt will become even more beholden to the institutions that have so successfully advanced the corporate agenda via the World Bank, the WTO and other agents of hegemony.
i don’t pretend to understand all of this. this could be totally wrong, and maybe carbon trading is the best thing ever. but it’s never sat right in my gut, and reading this article just made my heart sort of sink. if it’s true, what we’ve been told about the carbon market has been greenwashing at a most hideous level, and poorer countries are being strong-armed into agreeing to something that not only won’t work but might cost them dearly while the market participants profit.
what then? the article makes suggestions for how to move forward, the first being to admit we’ve been ‘hoodwinked’.
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Oooh. Thanks for the heads up. I just had an interview at the leading carbon credit trading firm. I’ve been doing a lot of research about it and I don’t know how I feel. I read some things on their website that gave me the heebie jeebies and other things that made me want to exclaim, “Rad!!!”
i want to clarify that i didn’t post this because i think it’s totally true. a great many very smart people believe in carbon trading as a viable way to at least help offset the damage being done. however, when it gets into the international realm, it seems it could have many more impacts on some nations/communities than just reducing carbon, and those impacts are being very scrutinized at the current convention in Bali. some of the thinking, as represented here, is that the carbon market could become a very dangerous financial tool.
i admit that i don’t know much about this in great detail, but it doesn’t seem too conspiratorial to me.
here’s another recent article about how the carbon market fails to take differing economies and issues – such as those in developing nations – into consideration:
www.celsias.com/2008/02/29/offsetting-democracy/