Embedding Carbon Markets: Complicating Commodification of Ecosystem Services in Mexico's Forests

Osborne, Tracey; Shapiro‐Garza, Elizabeth

doi:10.1080/24694452.2017.1343657

Cited by 44 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 48 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…These assumptions include the belief that the degradation of ecosystems can be counteracted with the provision of direct, financial incentives with prices set by a market; that voluntary participants will engage in conservation efforts if the incentives are sufficient to cover opportunity costs; that transaction costs will be low; and that the effectiveness of such efforts can be easily quantified and measured (Muradian et al, 2010;Vatn, 2010;Wunder, 2005). A growing body of research has begun to explore the dynamic processes through which 'actually existing' PES initiatives (Bakker, 2010) have defied the logic of this model as they are altered and adapted to conform to specific development pathways and local contexts, influenced and altered through the situated agency of the actors involved (McElwee et al, 2014;Hendrickson and Corbera, 2015;Milne and Adams, 2012;Osborne and Shapiro-Garza, 2018;Shapiro-Garza, 2013b;Van Hecken et al, 2015;vonHedemann and Osborne, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Market Logics: Payments for Ecosystem Services as Alternative Development Practices in the Global South

Shapiro‐Garza¹,

McElwee²,

Hecken³

et al. 2019

Development and Change

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) initiatives, which provide financial incentives for management practices thought to increase the production of environmental benefits, have expanded across the global South since the late 1990s. These initiatives have thus far been conceptualized rather narrowly; by their early proponents as a novel economic instrument for more 'rational', effective and efficient environmental policy or by their critics as an exogenously imposed conduit of hegemonic neoliberalism. This Introductory article to the special issue that follows advocates for and demonstrates a more grounded and historically-situated approach for understanding the conformation and outcomes of PES in actual practice. It proposes a framework for examining individual PES initiatives as shaped by dynamic interactions between imposed structure and the development pathways and situated agency of actors in the territories in which they are implemented. It finds that certain ubiquitous components of this approach-the valuation of nature, the creation of institutions and the negotiations that inevitably surround the distribution of benefits-provide potential openings for articulation and engagement that can allow these initiatives to be contested, adapted, hybridized or more fully co-opted and captured. This framework opens a pathway for more inclusive, nuanced and grounded research on PES and on market-based environment and development policies more broadly.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Market Logics: Payments for Ecosystem Services as Alternative Development Practices in the Global South

Shapiro‐Garza¹,

McElwee²,

Hecken³

et al. 2019

Development and Change

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…So far, these debates have been vastly dominated by theoretical contributions. Of the few existing empirical studies, some have experimentally explored behavioural changes associated with the use of the notion of ecosystem services (Novo et al, 2018); others have applied document analysis to investigate commodification effects in environmental public policies (Mesa-Jurado et al, 2018) and others have used in-depth case study examination to explore institutional aspects of commodification (Osborne and Shapiro-Garza, 2018). In this paper we focus on the views of those involved in informing, designing and implementing environmental public policy, aiming to understand the extent to which they consider there is a risk of commodifying nature in the adoption of ecosystem services-based approaches.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nature commodification: ‘a necessary evil’? An analysis of the views of environmental professionals on ecosystem services-based approaches

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Carbon markets ideally conserve natural resources 1,2 , limit surface warming to < 1.5 ˚C relative to the pre-industrial period [3][4][5] , and are commercially viable [6][7][8] . However, uncertainty in carbon product asset value 9 and market function can negatively affect carbon markets and their efficacy to manage climate change [10][11][12][13] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

California air resources board forest carbon protocol invalidates offsets

Marino

Mincheva

Doucett

2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The commercial asset value of sequestered forest carbon is based on protocols employed globally, however, their scientific basis has not been validated. We review and analyze commercial forest carbon protocols and offsets, claimed to have reduced net greenhouse gas emissions, issued by the California Air Resources Board and validated by the Climate Action Reserve (CARB-CAR). CARB-CAR protocol annual offsets, resulting from forest mensuration and growth simulation models, are compared with a population of forest field sites for which annual net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of carbon was measured directly as flux by CO2 eddy covariance, a meteorologically based method integrating forest carbon pools. We characterize differences between the protocols by testing the null hypothesis that the CARB-CAR commercial annual offset data fall within the boundaries of directly measured forest carbon NEE; gC m-2yr-1 are compared for both datasets. Irrespective of geographic location and project type, the CARB-CAR population annual mean value is significantly different from the NEE population mean at the 95% confidence interval, rejecting the null hypothesis. The CARB-CAR population exhibits standard deviation ~5x that of the NEE natural ranges; the variance exceeds the 5% compliance limit for invalidation of CARB-CAR offsets. Exclusion of the soil carbon pool typical for CARB-CAR net carbon budgets pose insuperable carbon accounting uncertainty for offsets that extend to vendor platforms and policies including the United Nations Program on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and the Paris Agreement. NEE methodology for commercial forest carbon offsets ensures in situ molecular specificity, verification of claims for net carbon balance, performance-based pricing and harmonization of carbon protocols for voluntary and compliance markets worldwide, in contrast to continuing uncertainty posed by traditional estimation-based forest carbon protocols.

show abstract

Embedding Carbon Markets: Complicating Commodification of Ecosystem Services in Mexico's Forests

Cited by 44 publications

References 48 publications

Beyond Market Logics: Payments for Ecosystem Services as Alternative Development Practices in the Global South

Beyond Market Logics: Payments for Ecosystem Services as Alternative Development Practices in the Global South

Nature commodification: ‘a necessary evil’? An analysis of the views of environmental professionals on ecosystem services-based approaches

California air resources board forest carbon protocol invalidates offsets

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About