The New Carbon Economy E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Serie: Antipode Book Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 384

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

The New Carbon Economy provides a critical understanding of the carbon economy. It offers key insights into the constitution, governance and effects of the carbon economy, across a variety of geographical settings.

• Examines different dimensions of the carbon economy from a range of disciplinary angles in a diversity of settings
• Provides ways for researchers to subject claims of newness and uniqueness to critical scrutiny
• Historicizes claims of the 'newness' of the carbon economy
• Covers a range of geographical settings including Europe, the US and Central America

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Series Page

Antipode Book Series

Title Page

Copyright

List of Contributors

Chapter 1: The “New” Carbon Economy: What’s New?

Introduction

Constituting the “New” Carbon Economy

Governing the “New” Carbon Economy

Effects of the “New” Carbon Economy

Conclusions

Acknowledgements

References

Chapter 2: The Matter of Carbon: Understanding the Materiality of tCO2e in Carbon Offsets

Introduction

Creating the Carbon Commodity: Processes of Commodification and the International Carbon Economy

Global–Local Linkages and Offset Technologies

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

References

Chapter 3: Making Markets Out of Thin Air: A Case of Capital Involution

Introduction

“From the point of view of the atmosphere”?

Negotiating Sinks

The Problem with Sinks

Sinks under the CDM

On the Role of Time and Risk in Reproducing Uneven Development

On Capital Involution

Endnotes

References

Chapter 4: Between Desire and Routine: Assembling Environment and Finance in Carbon Markets

Introduction

The Cultural Construction of Carbon Markets

Mobilising Desire

Borrowing Financial Practices

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

References

Chapter 5: Ecological Modernisation and the Governance of Carbon: A Critical Analysis

Introduction

Ecological Modernisation and the Governance of Carbon

Carbon Governance through the EU Emissions Trading Scheme

Carbon Governance through the Market for Offsets

Concluding Discussion

Acknowledgments

References

Chapter 6: Accounting for Carbon: The Role of Accounting Professional Organisations in Governing Climate Change

Introduction

How and Why Carbon is Measured

Accountants and Climate Change

Summary and Conclusions

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

References

Chapter 7: Realizing Carbon’s Value: Discourse and Calculation in the Production of Carbon Forestry Offsets in Costa Rica

Introduction

Development Discourse: The Problem of Agriculture and the Solution of Carbon

Enter Carbon Offsets: The Cost–Benefit Calculations

The Value of Additionality and the Discourse of Value

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

References

Chapter 8: Resisting and Reconciling Big Wind: Middle Landscape Politics in the New American West

Introduction

Mobilizing Place Theory and New American West Literatures

Public Perceptions and Opposition to Wind Energy

Searchlight Wind

Moving Forward

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Endnotes

References

Index

Antipode Book Series

General Editor: Dr Rachel Pain, Reader in the Department of Geography, Durham University, UK

Like its parent journal, the Antipode Book Series reflects distinctive new developments in radical geography. It publishes books in a variety of formats – from reference books to works of broad explication to titles that develop and extend the scholarly research base – but the commitment is always the same: to contribute to the praxis of a new and more just society.

Published

The New Carbon Economy: Constitution, Governance and Contestation Edited by Peter Newell, Max Boykoff and Emily Boyd

Capitalism and Conservation Edited by Dan Brockington and Rosaleen Duffy

Spaces of Environmental Justice Edited by Ryan Holifield, Michael Porter and Gordon Walker

The Point is to Change It: Geographies of Hope and Survival in an Age of Crisis Edited by Noel Castree, Paul Chatterton, Nik Heynen, Wendy Larner and Melissa W. Wright

Privatization: Property and the Remaking of Nature-Society Edited by Becky Mansfield

Practising Public Scholarship: Experiences and Possibilities Beyond the Academy Edited by Katharyne Mitchell

Grounding Globalization: Labour in the Age of Insecurity Edward Webster, Rob Lambert and Andries Bezuidenhout

Privatization: Property and the Remaking of Nature-Society Relations Edited by Becky Mansfield

Decolonizing Development: Colonial Power and the Maya Joel Wainwright

Cities of Whiteness Wendy S. Shaw

Neoliberalization: States, Networks, Peoples Edited by Kim England and Kevin Ward

The Dirty Work of Neoliberalism: Cleaners in the Global Economy Edited by Luis L. M. Aguiar and Andrew Herod

David Harvey: A Critical Reader Edited by Noel Castree and Derek Gregory

Working the Spaces of Neoliberalism: Activism, Professionalisation and Incorporation Edited by Nina Laurie and Liz Bondi

Threads of Labour: Garment Industry Supply Chains from the Workers’ Perspective Edited by Angela Hale and Jane Wills

Life’s Work: Geographies of Social Reproduction Edited by Katharyne Mitchell, Sallie A. Marston and Cindi Katz

Redundant Masculinities? Employment Change and White Working Class Youth Linda McDowell

Spaces of Neoliberalism Edited by Neil Brenner and Nik Theodore

Space, Place and the New Labour Internationalism Edited by Peter Waterman and Jane Wills

Forthcoming

Banking Across Boundaries: Placing Finance in Capitalism Brett Christophers

Fat Bodies, Fat Spaces: Critical Geographies of Obesity Rachel Colls and Bethan Evans

Gramscian Geographies: Space, Ecology, Politics Edited by Michael Ekers, Gillian Hart, Stefan Kipfer and Alex Loftus

Places of Possibility: Property, Nature and Community Land Ownership Fiona D. Mackenzie

Radical Democratization: Inventing Networks of Equivalence Mark Purcell

This edition first published 2012 Originally published as Volume 43, Issue 3 of Antipode Chapters © 2012 The Authors Book compilation © 2012 Editorial Board of Antipode and Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

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The right of Peter Newell, Max Boykoff and Emily Boyd to be identified as the authors of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this book.

The new carbon economy / edited by Peter Newell, Max Boykoff and Emily Boyd. p. cm. Includes index. “Originally published as Volume 43, Issue 3 of Antipode.” ISBN 978-1-4443-5022-7 (pbk.) 1. Energy industries–Environmental aspects. 2. Energy consumption–Environmental aspects. 3. Energy policy–Environmental aspects. 4. Carbon offsetting. 5. Carbon dioxide mitigation. 6. Environmental policy. 7. Climactic changes–Economic aspects. I. Newell, Peter (Peter John) II. Boykoff, Maxwell T. III. Boyd, Emily. IV. Antipode. HD9502.A2N485 2012 363.738′746–dc23 2011038340

List of Contributors

Ian BaileyUniversity of PlymouthEmily BoydUniversity of ReadingMaxwell BoykoffUniversity of ColoradoAdam G. BumpusUniversity of MelbournePhilippe DescheneauUniversity of OttawaAndy GouldsonUniversity of LeedsMaría GutiérrezConsultantDavid M. Lansing University of MarylandHeather LovellUniversity of EdinburghDonald MacKenzie University of EdinburghPeter NewellUniversity of SussexMatthew PatersonUniversity of OttawaRoopali PhadkeMacalester College

Chapter 1

The “New” Carbon Economy: What’s New?

Emily Boyd, Maxwell Boykoff and Peter Newell

Introduction

We now have what is commonly called a carbon economy. However, it is in fact made up of several, increasingly inter-connected, carbon markets. It takes different forms in different parts of the world, but includes systems of emissions trading (in the EU, some states in the USA and emerging schemes in cities, such as Montreal), and the buying and selling of offsets through United Nations-controlled “compliance” markets, most notably though the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) created by the Kyoto Protocol, as well as through “voluntary” markets. The carbon economy has had a turbulent history: its monetary value was affected by global financial meltdown, which also suppressed levels of demand for carbon credits, and its legitimacy questioned amid claims of climate fraud, “toxic carbon”, and acts of (neo)colonial dispossession (Bachram 2004; Friends of the Earth 2009; Lohmann 2005, 2006).

And yet the importance of the carbon economy should not be underestimated. With the CDM, for example, Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs) amounting to more than 2.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent are expected to be produced in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008–2012) (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—UNFCCC 2010). The revenues of the CDM constitute the largest source of mitigation finance to developing countries to date (World Bank 2010). Over the 2001–2012 period, CDM projects could raise US$15—24 billion in direct carbon revenues for developing countries. Actual revenues will, of course, depend on the price of carbon. The voluntary carbon market, meanwhile, saw early exponential growth with a tripling of transactions between 2006 and 2007, when it was worth US$331 million. It remains only fraction of the size of regulated markets though, and had its value nearly halve in 2009 to US$387 million and fall by a quarter in volumes of carbon transacted (Capoor and Ambrosi 2009). These markets remain important but very unstable. What is perhaps most notable is that, despite these crises, faith in carbon markets as a key element of global responses to the threat of climate change remains strong, as affirmed by the UN climate change meeting in December 2010 in Cancún.

The world of climate politics was not always thus. In the years up to 1992, being built on foundations similar to those of other multilateral environmental agreements, and particularly coming in the wake of the apparently successful ozone regime, a command and control process of setting targets globally that countries enforce nationally seemed a logical way to proceed for the climate regime. This after all was the template for numerous previous regimes aimed at regulating pollutants of one form or another. Yet, even as discussions moved from the UNFCCC to efforts to produce a legally binding emissions reductions treaty, opposition set in. This was not an issue amenable to convenient techno-fixes such as the substitution of damaging chemicals (replacing CFCs with HCFCs as in the case of ozone) or one that only affected a handful of large multinational enterprises in the core of the global economy for whom alternative accumulation strategies could easily be identified. The ramifications of regulating energy supply and use to the world’s economy, upon which growth depends, made climate change a “wicked” policy challenge.