🪚Critique

A critique of traditional carbon markets

Traditional carbon markets (compliance and voluntary carbon credits) is merely a mechanism that allows major polluters to present an image of taking climate change seriously while simultaneously profiting substantially. Government authorities distribute carbon credits, often for free, to the most significant polluters, and these are then traded like any other commodity.

Two of the most substantial carbon trading programs already in action are REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and CDM (Clean Development Mechanisms).

The collective application of these schemes essentially commoditises our natural resources, leading to their privatisation, sale, and further profiteering. REDD takes land rights away from local people and puts them in the hands of corporations. Frequently, the planting of non-indigenous species like eucalyptus in monocultures, as seen in Brazil, alters the local ecosystem. This not only dries up the land but also negatively impacts the flora essential to local inhabitants' survival.

The CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) allows industrialised nations, committed to greenhouse gas reduction, such as those under the Kyoto Protocol, to invest in ostensibly emission-reducing projects in developing countries. This alternative often appears less costly than implementing emission reductions in their own territories. For instance, CDM projects permit corporations to privatise rivers for creating "clean" hydroelectric dams. Since the dam theoretically emits fewer carbon emissions than a hypothetical coal-fired plant, the corporation is rewarded with carbon credits. These credits then either enable it to increase its pollution levels or sell the credits for a profit. Additionally, such privatisation often leads to increased surveillance and displacement. Now that these forests are seen as profit-making entities, indigenous communities who have resided within them for generations are being forcibly evicted from their lands.