Climate Change: The Political Economy of Kyoto Flexible Mechanisms

Abstract

The Kyoto Protocol entered into force on February 16, 2005. Emissions reductions targets established by the protocol will be met by domestic policies and by three international flexible mechanisms: clean development, joint implementation, and emissions trading. Following a value-theoretic and class-based approach, the purpose of this paper is to analyze these flexible mechanisms. In particular, the paper investigates the nature and adoption of flexible mechanisms, and their class and environmental links and implications. Carbon-intensive capitalist firms and developed economies are found to be exerting great influence on the shaping and implementation of flexible mechanisms. Environmental effectiveness and justice, and equal sustainable development raised and claimed by worker-citizens, social movements, local communities, and developing countries have not been secured. Thus flexible mechanisms do not present a real challenge to current institutions and practices for sustainable climate conditions for the workers-citizen of the world.JEL classification: B5, P1, Q4

The Contradictory Logic of Global Ecosystem Services Markets

“…The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) established the first framework for an international market in GHG emissions credits. It allows polluters to offset a share of their emissions, while continuing to produce them, by paying for global‐warming mitigation projects in lower‐income countries (Vlachou and Konstantinidis, 2010). As defined in Protocol Article 12, the CDM is meant to both foster sustainable development and make it easier and less costly for industrialized countries to comply with their Kyoto obligations.…”

Experimental investigation of combustion, emissions and thermal balance of secondary butyl alcohol-gasoline blends in a spark ignition engine

“…In addition, the utilisation of these conventional fuels, especially from the transportation sectors, has led to adverse effects on environmental systems [4]. The primary concern is the emitted greenhouse gasses (GHG) of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), nitrogen oxides (NO x ), carbon monoxides (CO) and unburned hydrocarbon (HC) [5,6]. In the viewpoint of this energy crisis, the combustion of fossil fuels is a significant contributor to the increase in the level of emissions, so automotive researchers are directed to search for clean alternative fuels such as alcohol, biodiesel and vegetable oil [7][8][9].…”

‘Fixing’ the climate crisis: capital, states, and carbon offsetting in India

“…Case studies collected by Lohmann (2006), Böhm and Dabhi (2009), and Ghosh and Sahu (2011) show that offset projects have repeatedly dispossessed communities from their land and polluted local environments. The result has been the entrenchment or exacerbation of existing class (Vlachou and Konstantinidis, 2010), race, gender (Bond, 2007), regional (Corbera and Brown, 2010), and global (Böhm et al, 2012) inequalities, which would need to be confronted in any effective and just response to climate change. This paper contributes to the growing body of literature on the political economy of carbon markets by analyzing the most extensive international carbon offsetting instrument: the United Nations (UN) Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).…”