Carbon Trading, Climate Justice and the Production of Ignorance: Ten Examples
Commerce du carbone, justice et ignorance
first published 18 August 2008
The idea that global warming can be addressed by turning hitherto unpriced greenhouse gas pollution dumps into a tradable, ownable commodity has helped mobilize neoclassical economics and development planning in new projects of dispossession, speculation, rent-seeking and the redistribution of wealth from poor to rich and from the future to the present.
A central aspect of this process has been the creation of new domains of ignorance. This article for the journal Development cites ten processes of ignorance-creation, focusing particularly on the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. It then asks what the quest for climate justice becomes once it is incorporated into a development or carbon market framework. An "Afterword" written in 2010 is also available here.
This article has been published in French as "Commerce du carbone, justice et ignorance" in Écologie & Politique. It has also been translated into Spanish and Finnish.