The Rise and Fall of Carbon Emissions Trading

Abstract

editor) NUCLEAR ENERGY DEVELOPMENT IN ASIA Problems and Prospects Energy, Climate and the Environment Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0-230-00800-7 (hb) 978-0-230-22150-5 (pb)You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order.

Counting Carbon or Counting Coal? Anchoring Climate Governance in Fossil Fuel–Based Accountability Frameworks

“…On the one hand, scientists, economists, policymakers and professionalised environmental NGOs have supported carbon-based accountability because it is widely perceived to hold out the promise of human control over the climate system through a kind of precision management of all of its human-controlled inputs (Allan 2017;Victor 2001). At the same time, however, carbon-based accountability has been supported by 6 carbon-intensive states and firms because the fungibility enabled by abstraction has provided opportunities for them to maximise flexibility and minimise compliance costs: path-dependent fossil fuel-based systems have been allowed to expand while carbon-based obligations have been met through less scrutable and more tenuous mitigation activities such as land-based sequestration, industrial gas destruction, "offsetting" and avoided deforestation (Dehm 2018;Kuch 2015).…”

“…These outcomes have been facilitated by the complexity of carbon-based MRV systems, especially in the areas just mentioned. This complexity necessitates heavy reliance on professional experts-to establish baselines, develop monitoring systems, set reporting and other standards, formulate procedures for making disclosures, interpret such disclosures, and evaluate their performance (Kuch 2015;MacKenzie 2009). These acts have political significance and affect large financial flows in the nascent carbon economy, meaning carbon professionals exercise de facto political authority (Kuch 2015;Lövbrand and Stripple 2011;Pearse 2018;Stripple and Lövbrand 2010).…”

“…It therefore matters what incentives these professionals face, and whose interests they serve. To a considerable extent, carbon management expertise has been employed by those agents with the greatest interest in minimising their apparent causal role in driving climate change (Kuch 2015). Carbonintensive states employ these experts to help them shape international MRV and accounting systems in ways that maximise their flexibility (Kuch 2015).…”

“…To a considerable extent, carbon management expertise has been employed by those agents with the greatest interest in minimising their apparent causal role in driving climate change (Kuch 2015). Carbonintensive states employ these experts to help them shape international MRV and accounting systems in ways that maximise their flexibility (Kuch 2015). Meanwhile, the fact that anthropogenic greenhouse gas point sources are highly dispersed and mostly controlled by private agents means domestic regulatory systems inevitably devolve extensive authority over MRV processes to carbon-intensive firms and for-profit auditing firms (see Bellassen and Stephan 2015).…”

The normative foundations of climate legislation

“…These clearly influenced the design of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), for example. However, determining the achievement of de jure GHG mitigation targets is a phenomenally complex socio-technical enterprise involving myriad MRV rules and layers of public and private governance practices through which 'facts on the ground' are translated into quantifiable, fungible and tradeable emissions units (Kuch, 2015;MacKenzie, 2009;van Zeben, 2014). Numerous studies have demonstrated how a combination of 'generous' accounting provisions relating to land-use and forestry, tradeable 'hot air' credits, and tradeable project-based credits of dubious environmental integrity ultimately gave states wide interpretive latitude in achieving their Kyoto targets (Kollmuss et al, 2015;Kuch, 2015;Schneider and Kollmuss, 2015;Shishlov et al, 2016;Stavins et al, 2014Stavins et al, , pp.…”