A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

Chapter 2‘Made in the USA’A short history of carbon tradingIn which the surprising story is told of how corporations, academics, governments,United Nations agencies and environmentalists united around a neoliberal or‘market’ approach to climate change emanating from North America.In the space of a few decades, a new form of global inequality hasabruptly become politically important. An industrialised minorityhas been shown to be overusing the earth’s ability to cleanse the atmosphereof excess carbon and other greenhouse gases. Awkwardly,this inequality has turned out to be one that threatens survival itself– including, ultimately, the survival of the rich.So what’s to be done?By whom? And about what? Different people see the crisis in differentways.Northern elites face one set of problems. How are they going to defendpower and privilege over a global good they never had to competefor before? How are corporations and society going to cope withthe new threat to a fossil-fuelled industrial structure? How best mightcorporations ride the wave of the climate crisis, seeking rewards forinnovation and seizing new assets? What effect will different kinds ofpolitical action on climate change have on accumulation and interregionaleconomic competition? How can the political unrest that’ssure to follow on from various climate disasters be either containedor exploited?Southern elites are concerned about somewhat different questions.How can the climate crisis be prevented from being used as yet anotherexcuse for pushing aside the long-thwarted claims of Southerncountries to industrialisation and the world’s wealth? How might itbe transformed into a source of political leverage? What are the beststrategies for dealing with unanticipated catastrophes and enormouslyincreased flows of environmental refugees?As with every new international development, all sides are eyeingeach other cautiously, uncertain how the new conditions will affecttheir respective standings.