Carbon Trade Watch is part of the Transnational Institute’s Environmental Justice project. The Carbon Trade Watch group is organised non-hierarchically and is committed to challenging prejudice in all its forms. This is actively pursued in perspectives explored in the work, as well as being a constant part of the internal organisation of the project structure. The group believes that challenging domination is a vital part of the process of achieving a diverse spectrum of just and sustainable societies.

Carbon Trade Watch comprises three core researcher-activists: Tamra Gilbertson, Oscar Reyes and Joanna Cabello.

To contact team members email simply put the first name and then @carbontradewatch.org

A fundamental aspect of our work is producing in-depth, accessible and concrete research on pollution trading with a focus upon the global trade in greenhouse gases.

There is a severe and worrying lack of critical research and publications on the emerging markets in pollution credits.

Carbon Trade Watch aims to provide a vital resource to underresourced groups such as Indigenous peoples groups, small southern NGOs and activists who have spoken out against these market-based mechanisms.

 

Carbon Trade Watch seeks to support communities and individuals struggling with issues of environmental and social injustice.

We believe that there is an absence of voices from those affected by climate change and those impacted by the so-called solutions contained in the Kyoto Protocol. We seek to address that imbalance and create space for those voices to be heard, through research, analysis, film and photography.

In parallel to our own work to support communities, we participate in the Durban Group for Climate Justice that works to bring decisions about climate change back into people's hands.

 

 

Carbon Trade Watch uses many different mediums to explore the issues around climate change. We utilise a range of tools such as film, photography, audio, web and publications. 

While we witness the emergence of a new carbon economy, key questions remain unanswered regarding the impact global pollution trading will have on society and the environment. Are people being cheated in the name of sustainable development? An urgent need for research and network-building on greenhouse gas trading and other forms of pollution trading defines the beginning of Carbon Trade Watch.

Events which led to the adoption of pollution trading in the Kyoto Protocol show polluters successfully turning the potential threat of climate change into an opportunity for profit in the form of pollution trading. Corporations have successfully dominated United Nations (UN) process and there has been a slow decline in the ability of environmental NGOs to stand behind an environmental negotiating position. At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, the NGO Global Forum stated that climate negotiators should avoid any pollution trading schemes which "only superficially address climate change problems, perpetuate or worsen inequities hidden behind the problem or have a negative impact." Later, criticism heightened with arguments that a trade in greenhouse gases would be a new form of colonialism. Public protest outside the negotiations mounted. However, eventually the combined power of multi-stakeholder dialogue, the corporate lobby and neo-liberal ideology extinguished other voices inside the negotiations. The US rejection of the Kyoto Protocol accelerated this trend. The overwhelming majority of remaining critical NGOs and governments rushed to compromise in the hope of keeping sceptical governments on board and trying to win back the US. Many environmental NGOs have negotiated themselves into a corner, which allows little space for effective critique of pollution trading but provides ample opportunities for consultancy work in the carbon economy.