The Politics and Practice of Carbon Offsetting: Silencing Dissent

Abstract

This article offers an examination of the politics and practice of carbon offsetting. It is argued that inherent to the carbon offset are a set of contradictions that function to normalize consumption as solution, capitalism as saviour. In order to understand how such contradictions are reconciled, this article suggests that offsetting must be understood as a psycho-social device through which the individual's fears and discontents in the face of existential crises such as global warming are ultimately pacified. Additionally, it is argued that carbon offsetting functions to re-stabilize the narrative of capitalism as progress, satisfying the broader needs of a system that risks collapse should the masses reject its necessary illusion. By drawing on the example of Al Gore as carbon warrior, the perils inherent to relying on the false God that has become the carbon offset to remedy the global warming crisis are illuminated.More than anything else, the carbon offset has come to structure the form and content of global warming governance and action today. This is the case both within official governance bodies such as the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol, and at the level of disparate businesses and individuals in the West attempting to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions. Touted for the flexibility they offer polluters in cutting emission levels-indeed, offsets allow polluters to pay distant others, frequently located in the global south, to engage in emission reduction activities as a substitute for reductions at the source-offsets have begun to normalize the idea that only through the development of new markets and profit opportunities will the global community solve the climate crisis. In this sense, the carbon offset offers a lens through which to analyze modern environmentalism's substantive transmogrification-not simply a change by degrees but a change in kind, 1 whereby solutions appear strange and unsettled, embodying "unnatural combinations" that unify the problem as solution, capitalism as saviour.Indeed, while early environmentalism identified the capitalist system of production as responsible in part for emerging environmental crises, demanding a societal shift to more sustainable, non-capitalist social relations, today mainstream environmentalism is organized around the maintenance and expansion of this

The fantasy of carbon offsetting

“…Linking the conceptual framework of psycho-analytical ideology critique to the case of carbon offsetting can help explain the stickiness of carbon offsetting, even in face of vigorous contestation from those seeking alternatives to better promote climate justice. I suggest that the remnants of desire for carbon offset credits continue because they can, for example, offer subjects illusory promises of recuperated 'eco' enjoyment of capitalism's penchant for consumerist fantasies (Ervine 2012), or because the rich may enjoy the spectacle of the smiling poor (c.f. Wilson 2014a) 'cleaning up' to absolve the subject of their carbon 'sins' (Smith 2007, c.f.…”

“…Combining critical literature on carbon offsetting with literature on pyscho-analytical ideology critique can help us appreciate that carbon offsetting problematically responds to the growing social, climatic and ecological crises of capitalism in a fashion that encourages subjects to embrace the logics of neoliberal environmental governance (Ervine 2012), even though a more fundamental reckoning with the features of subjective attachment to a dying planet is needed (Fletcher 2018). Continuing to expose myths and flaws of practices like carbon offsetting can be valuable in exposing the gap between knowledge/discourse and material reality in environmental governance.…”

“…Existing critical literature on offsetting, reviewed below, reveals this much. Some literature also discusses the ways by which discourses, knowledge claims, and practices of carbon offsetting interact with questions of subjectivity (Paterson and Stripple 2010, Descheneau and Paterson 2011, Ervine 2012). However, discussions of the subjectivity associated with carbon offsetting have rarely embraced insights from psychoanalytic theory, except in brief by Swyngedouw (2010) and Lohmann (2012).…”

Diminishing Returns: Carbon Market Crisis and the Future of Market-Dependent Climate Change Finance

“…These relate to the mechanism's internal rewards structure which promotes the cultivation of what has been called 'low-hanging fruit' (Castro 2010), manifested in two interrelated ways. First, there is an incentive to undertake projects with low overall costs, permitting a greater profit margin for project developers and, second, there is an incentive to develop projects that reduce or eliminate GHGs with high 'global warming potentials' (GWP) (EcoSecurities 2007: 77;Narain and van't Veld 2008;Lohmann 2010: 243;Ervine 2012). GWP is a calculation of the potency of various GHGs relative to one tonne of CO 2 , with project-based carbon credits under the CDM awarded by equivalency.…”

Private finance and governance of REDD+ projects in Indonesia

“…Globalised society and economy appears to be relying on market environmentalism and green products to facilitate consumers 'purchasing' their economies out and away from the climate change issue (Krahmann, 2012;Girod, van Vuuren, & Hertwich, 2014). In these cases a corporate approach to carbon accounting and management has become standard practice (Pinkse & Busch, 2013), and PSF actors and customers are investing in offsets in the hope that capitalism and consumption can solve the problem (Ervine, 2012). As McGregor et al (2015, p. 141) point out, the "pervasiveness of this market environmentalism… as 'common sense' is evident in the design and rationale of REDD+".…”