Anyone who still thinks that creating a carbon casino can solve our
climate crisis owes it to themselves to read this book. The most
convincing and concise challenge to the green profiteers yet. - Naomi Klein, author, the Shock Doctrine
"This book is an invaluable contribution to understanding the pitfalls of relying on the carbon markets to save the world's poor and the planet" - Meena Raman, Third World Network
“The transition to a post-oil model is inevitable but instead of starting this process, it is delayed by barriers and traps such as the carbon market. This book teaches us how this barrier works and what there is behind this new trap of green capitalism. It is obligatory reading for all who fight for a post-oil civilization.” - Ivonne Yanez, Oilwatch South America
"A clear and enlightening explanation of a problem that vested interests want to make incomprehensible. Great job."
- Ana Filipini, coordinator of the Latin American Network Against Monoculture Tree Plantations
"Carbon trading is a scandalous story of economic dogma, government-business collusion, windfall profits, and promotion of emissions-intensive growth, compounded by speculative sub-prime trading and creation of divisions within vulnerable communities. This incisive analysis demolishes many myths and argues for sustainable solutions to the climate crisis." - Praful Bidwai, Delhi-Based journalist and author of An India that can Say Yes: a Climate-Responsible Development Agenda for Copenhagen and Beyond
Carbon trading lies at the centre of global climate policy and is projected to become one of the world’s largest commodities markets, yet it has a disastrous track record since its adoption as part of the Kyoto Protocol. Carbon Trading: how it works and why it fails outlines the limitations of an approach to tackling climate change which redefines the problem to fit the assumptions of neoliberal economics. It demonstrates that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, the world’s largest carbon market, has consistently failed to ´cap´ emissions, while the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) routinely favours environmentally ineffective and socially unjust projects. This is illustrated with case studies of CDM projects in Brazil, Indonesia, India and Thailand.
UN climate talks in Copenhagen are discussing ways to expand the trading experiment, but the evidence suggests it should be abandoned. From subsidy shifting to regulation, there is a plethora of ways forward without carbon trading – but there are no short cuts around situated local knowledge and political organising if climate change is to be addressed in a just and fair manner.
SPACE FOR MOVEMENT?Building Bridges Collective
REFLECTIONS FROM BOLIVIA ON CLIMATE JUSTICE, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE STATE
In the wake of the failed COP-15 in Copenhagen last December, Bolivia’s first indigenous president called for a World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth... Read More
HOODWINKED IN THE HOTHOUSE: False Solutions to Climate ChangeRising Tide North America and Carbon Trade Watch
This 28-page booklet provides a close-to-comprehensive overview of false solutions to climate change. Fifteen concise articles—complete with photos and illustrations—cover more than 20 false solutions to climate change, from Clean Coal to Biomass incineration, providing an... Read More
CARBON TRADING – HOW IT WORKS AND WHY IT FAILSTamra Gilbertson and Oscar Reyes
en castellano
Critical Currents no. 7, November 2009
Carbon trading lies at the centre of global climate policy and is projected... Read More
UPSETTING THE OFFSETSteffen Böhm and Siddhartha Dabhi
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF CARBON MARKETS
Steffen Böhm & Siddhartha Dabhi (eds)Download (4.5MB)
Download Chapter 4: 'How Sustainable are Small-Scale Biomass Factories? A Case Study from Thailand' by Tamra Gilbertson... Read More
PAVING THE WAY FOR AGROFUELSGRR / CEO/ TNI
EU POLICY, SUSTAINABILITY CRITERIA,
AND CLIMATE CALCULATIONS
As criticism of agrofuels grows, the European Commission, various EU
governments and international bodies are now developing
‘sustainability’ criteria and standards for their use, but it is
unlikely that any set... Read More
AGROFUELS
TOWARDS A REALITY CHECK
IN NINE KEY AREAS
A new paper published by Carbon Trade Watch, in conjunction with nine
other organisations from Germany, Indonesia, Spain, Denmark, the UK and
Argentina, sets out critical concerns regarding the rapid expansion of
the agrofuel... Read More
THE CARBON NEUTRAL MYTHKevin Smith
OFFSET INDULGENCES FOR
YOUR CLIMATE SINS
Carbon
offsets are the modern day indulgences, sold to an increasingly carbon
conscious public to absolve their climate sins. Scratch the surface,
however, and a disturbing picture emerges, where creative accountancy
and elaborate shell games... Read More
CARBON TRADING Larry Lohmann
A CRITICAL CONVERSATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE, PRIVATISATION AND POWER
“Bad for the South, bad for the North, and bad for the climate”
The climate change debate will heat up further this week with the
publication of an exhaustively-documented new book which... Read More
TROUBLE IN THE AIRCentre for Civil Society in Durban / TNI
GLOBAL WARMING AND THE PRIVATISED ATMOSPHERE
This
joint publication of Centre for Civil Society in Durban and TNI
explores the impacts of the carbon market in South Africa. Connecting
energy privatisation with issues around the enclosure of the
atmosphere, this collections of essays... Read More
HOODWINKED IN THE HOTHOUSE Carbon Trade Watch
THE G8, CLIMATE CHANGE AND FREE-MARKET ENVIRONMENTALISM
This
briefing examines the relationship between free-market economic forces
and climate change policy while scrutinising the rhetoric and reality
behind promises on climate made by the most powerful politicians in the
world... Read More
CAPITALISM NATURE SOCIALISMHeidi Bachram
Carbon Trade Watch explores the fraudulent and neo-colonial dimensions
of the new trade in greenhouse gases in this essay in the December
issue of the red-green journal Capitalism Nature Socialism.
Capitalism Nature Socialism website
Read More
2010 Carbon Trade Watch
