Greening Capitalism? A Marxist Critique of Carbon Markets

Abstract

Climate change is increasingly being recognized as a serious threat to dominant modes of social organization, inspiring suggestions that capitalism itself needs to be transformed if we are to 'decarbonize' the global economy. Since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, carbon markets have emerged as the main politico-economic tools in global efforts to address climate change. Newell and Paterson (2010) have recently claimed that the embrace of carbon markets by financial and political elites constitutes a possible first step towards the transformation of current modes of capitalist organization into a new form of greener, more sustainable 'climate capitalism.' In this paper, we argue that the institutionalization of carbon markets does not, in fact, represent a move towards the radical transformation of capitalism, but is better understood as the most recent expression of ongoing trends of ecological commodification and expropriation, driving familiar processes of uneven and crisis-prone development. In this paper, we review four critical Marxist concepts: metabolic rift (Foster, 1999); capitalism as world ecology (Moore, 2011a); uneven development and accumulation through dispossession (Harvey, 2003(Harvey, , 2006 and sub-imperialism (Marini, 1972, 1977), developing a framework for a Marxist analysis of carbon markets. Our analysis shows that carbon markets form part of a longer historical development of global capitalism and its relation to nature. Carbon markets, we argue, serve as creative new modes of accumulation, but are unlikely to transform capitalist dynamics in ways that might foster a more sustainable global economy. Our analysis also elucidates, in particular, the role that carbon markets play in exacerbating uneven development within the Global South, as elites in emerging economies leverage carbon market financing to pursue new strategies of sub-imperial expansion.

Drilling their Own Graves: How the European Oil and Gas Supermajors Avoid Sustainability Tensions Through Mythmaking

“…As such, significant investment in renewables, for example, becomes particularly difficult because there are too many ''unknowns'' that cannot be necessarily be calculated, proven, or measured (Levy and Lichtenstein 2011). Even if initiatives do conform to this ''ideology of numbers'' (Chelli and Gendron 2012), such as pricing carbon through financial markets, they tend to reproduce the obsession with measurability, since carbon markets are themselves predicated on discourses of measurability (Böhm et al 2012). Therefore, the supermajors become trapped by their fixation with measurability, which in turn excludes alternative discourses that cannot be easily quantified such as deep ecology or systems thinking (Devall 1991;Williams et al 2017).…”

“Daring to Care”: Challenging Corporate Environmentalism

“…This so-called ecological modernism makes claims for an effective ecological stewardship capable of overcoming the tensions inherent between ''Daring to Care'': Challenging Corporate Environmentalism the economy/economic growth and the environment (Murphy 2000;Juniper 2014 8 ) and is posited as a means to reduce the environmental impact of industrial activity. This is to be achieved by incorporating the natural world within the orbit of capital accumulation; resources and ecosystems will be conserved by privatizing and marketizing them (Böhm et al 2012). In addition, ecological modernization promotes technological innovation to develop production methods that are less damaging and through macroeconomic restructuring that ''seeks to shift the emphasis of the macro-economy away from energy and resource intensive industries towards service and knowledge intensive industries'' (Gouldson and Murphy 1997, p. 75).…”

“…The transformation of ecological resources into monetized assets has resulted in minimal mitigation of environmental damage and increasing flows of assets, wealth and income to an increasingly small elite and to richer countries (Böhm et al 2012). Even those who argue for ecological modernization do not see it as an unproblematic means to overcome environmental problems (Murphy 2000); technological/market solutions to, for example, loss of species are unavailable, there are powerful vested interests who might lose out from and who resist innovation (such as fossil fuel industries), and gains in eco-efficiency can be neutralized by economic growth (Janicke 2008).…”

Carbon Crime in the Voluntary Market: An Exploration of Modernization Themes Among a Sample of Criminal and Non-criminal Organizations

“…That is, voluntary markets are viewed as a practical solution for economic growth and environmental protection but can also facilitate opportunities for crime. Lohmann (2009) stresses the opportunities for corruption that allows negative social and environmental costs to continue (see also Böhm et al 2012). Yet despite these criticisms, voluntary markets exist.…”

“…It provides a complex understanding of post-industrial society, and the increasing importance of the ecology, and the role of governments in emphasizing environmental policy to attain pollution reduction (Anderson and Massa 2000;Christoff 1996;Gouldson and Murphy 1997;Hajer 1995;Harvey 1993;Huber 1982;Jänicke et al 1993;Weale 1993). In short, EMT emphasizes the importance of both the economy and ecology and those solutions rooted in technological innovation and markets (Böhm et al 2012;Gouldson and Murphy 1997).…”