Preliminary Participant Observations on the Persistence & Consequences of Neoliberal Inspired Climate Policy

Dr. M. K. Dorsey - Wesleyan University, College of the Environment

21 September 2012 •Univ. of Kansas, IGERT Program

Today’s Objectives

2 (or 3, if time allows) Objectives Today • ABCs of 21st Century Climate Policy

• (A) Elucidate Methods for an Ethnography of Climate Policy: How to investigate neoliberal climate policy & the infrastructures of carbon trading and responses.

– Merging Discursive & Empirical Methods

• (B) Elaborate the origins, crises, & limits of --neoliberal (hegemonic/core) climate policy-- by mapping “flexible mechanisms” .

Time permitting…• (C) Explore and trace the nature of resistance (justice) & role of

institutions in the pre- & post-2012 climate policy world.

(A)

Methods:Towards an Ethnography of

Climate Policy

METHODS

Towards an Ethnography of CO2 Markets• Sustained Participant Observation (since

2004, Buenos Aires COP10 to present/2011 Durban COP17)

• Case Studies Bound By (Multi-site) Ethnographic Field Work (at COPs, with affected communities, on CDM sites, etc.)

• Archival Research (from UNCED, pre-Kyoto)

• Discourse Analysis of carbon market participants

• Semi-Structured Interviews of market-makers, lesser participants, regulators, inter alia

• Studying Up…Competitive Intelligence Research

COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH (CIR)(EXPANDING L. Nader’s Work “Studying Up”)

(1)Conduct basic literature searches on CO2 market actors;

(2)Acquire public records and web-based information (e.g., monitoring and tracking actor web sites);

(3)Target, seek out, & query CO2 universe: industry, NGO & government observers;

(4)Interact/Interview/Observe targeted leaders* (i.e., CEOs, Presidents, etc.) & data gathering from open sources (speeches, trade meetings, “snowballing” the COP/MOP, etc.);

(5)Visit sites (trading floors, COP/MOP, research institutes, plus other facilities and sites utilized by CO2 market actors); &

(6)Develop targeted ‘CO2 market actor’-informant relationships*.

Electronic Correspondence as function of Epistemic Community

EPISTEMIC COMMUNITY

NUMBER SINGULAR EMAILS

Government 8

Industry 18

Institutions of higher

learning/Learned Societies

84

Journalists 18

Non-governmental organizations 78

Thesis Students 7

TOTAL: 62

(~5-7/day - 3-4 person team)

TOTAL: 213

(from more than 3000)

SAMPLE OF DATA GATHERED, …for a typical COP

Primary Data: Semi-structured Interviews -->

<-- Also Correspondence

One of our tools …

What is the CORE

“Official” (hegemonic) Solution…?

Kyoto Protocol (KP):

“Flexible Mechanisms”KP - Article 2 - “application of market instruments”

Art. 17 - “emissions trading”:

“The Conference of the Parties shall define the relevant principles, modalities, rules and guidelines,

in particular for verification, reporting and accountability for emissions trading.”

REDUX: 2 Key “Solutions” built on:

MarketsDefined by:

Cap & Trade•Offset Schemes

Why use the market? (Theory &) Ethnographic data reveal…

“Carbon trading’s [and offsets] objective is to [quickly] reduce the costs of emissions reductions for industrialised countries.”

Ken Newcombe, World Bank Prototype Carbon Fund, Bonn, 6 June 2000

(B)Limited Ethnographic Data

(& Theory) Results on…•

What & Why Do Market-Makers Say:

‘We need the market?’

Remember a theoretical Ken Newcombe, a few slides ago…

(in the coming slides pay attention to WHO IS SPEAKING & THE DATE…)

Meet the new Ken Newcombe from earlier in 2008…

“I'm not at all convinced from what we've seen internationally that a cap and trade regime and a price on carbon is going to motivate investment in truly transformational technologies.”

--Goldman Sachs, Carbon Head, Ken Newcombe, 17 Jan. 2008,

To Carbon Policy Forum in New York.

Re-Meet a newer Ken Newcombe from later in 2008…

“We are thrilled to be trading on the CCFE [Chicago Climate Futures Exchange] and supporting the pioneering efforts of the Chicago Climate Exchange.”

-- Ken Newcombe, CEO of C-Quest Capital LLC,

19 November 2008.

An even newer Ken Newcombe from later in 2009…

“To mobilize capital now and begin a transformation to new energy technologies is a very risky business.”

-- Ken Newcombe, CEO of C-Quest Capital LLC,

4 December 2009.

The newest (!) Ken Newcombe from March 2011…

“It would have been very difficult to raise the money required for a [CDM] programme … without the loan from the Shell Foundation,” Newcombe said.

-- Ken Newcombe, CEO of C-Quest Capital LLC,

28 March 2011.

Ethnographic data snap-shots…

“So far, the European market has been a costly mistake…The Kyoto Protocol period is almost a lost decade.”

--Catrinus Jepma, Professor of Energy & Sustainability,

University of Groningen, The Netherlands, 5 Nov. 2007

FRAUD PREDICTED IN 2007 (!)…

“If you are going to trade any commodity on the open market, you are

creating a profit and loss situation.  There will be fraudulent trading of carbon credits…In future, if you are running a factory and you desperately need credits to offset your emissions, there

will be someone who can make that happen for you.  Absolutely, organized crime will be involved.”

--Peter Younger, Interpol, told Reuters in an interview at a forestry conference in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian island of Bali, 2007

“Carbon trading may have been the answer once but not any more... It will just take too long to achieve anything, and we no longer have the luxury of

time.”--Professor Kevin Anderson,

Director of the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Discussion at the Royal Society, October 2008

“The European Union (EU) Emission Trading System (ETS) has been the victim of fraudulent traders in the past 18 months. This resulted in losses of approximately 5 billion euros for several national tax revenues. It is estimated that in some countries, up to 90% of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities.”

--Europol Press Release, The Hague, December 2009

Ethnographic Data point:

(B2) Enhancing Ethnographic Data with some Market Empirics…

(~Last 365 Days)

•(Or Exploring Structural Crisis of Climate Capitalism)

Crisis Capitalism • “Core” Solution Meltdown

…Start of Q4, before the Durban talks)

End of Q1, after Cancun talks…

>30% EUA Fall in last 2 quarters ‘2011…

30% down

2012 Market trajectory…

2012 Market trajectory…

Our view on 24 Jan. 2012 - South Africa’s Business Day…

Last monthE.ON CEO on EU-ETS:“Its bust. It is dead”High-level Stakeholder Conference on the Energy Roadmap 20507 Feb 2012Go to: 3mins 20 sec.

At start Q4 - 2012 …

(B3) Expanding, Enhancing Our Ethnographic Data

•Further Results & Graphical

Visualizations

1 Key Research Question:Is the Core “Solution” Set:

FAIR? JUST?(Will There Be Climate Justice?)

(How does the current “Solution” work?)

Back to one of our tools …

Some Results for California…

..or justice denied? Case of CA-AB32

Some (Limited) Results EU-ETS / CDM…

(More to be here: • Dorsey, M. K., G. Gambirazzio and S. Pauls. (draft) How the carbon market is

structured: Network analysis, empirical insights & implications—practical and theoretical. (For submission to Global Environmental Change.)

&• Dorsey, M. K. and G. Gambirazzio. 2012. A critical geography of the CDM. in P.

Bond (ed.) The CDM in Africa. (University of KwaZuluNatal Press).

Network & Neighborhood of the EU-ETS:Geographic analysis & data visualization

End of Q4 2011 - 50% of the Certified Emissions Reduction (CERs) credits in the EUETS market

held by 9 entities…

Network & Neighborhood of the EU-ETS:90% Cut (q4, 2011)

Q4, 2011 • After 7* (11§) years of CDMOligonomy? Carbon Cartel?

4 KEY IMPLICATIONS OF A “SMALL NETWORK NEIGHBORHOOD” for EU-ETS

• The EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) has failed to reduce emissions. IEA: 2010 CO2 emissions highest in human history.

• EU Climate Action Commissioner Hedegaard says: [Many CDM] credits have a “total lack of environmental integrity.” (Yet companies can use 1.6 billion CDM offset credits in phases II & III)

• ETS is a subsidy scheme for polluters. Power companies gained windfall profits ~€19B Phase I; & may bring in ~€1B in PII. Subsidies to energy-intensive industry PI & II ~ €20B.

• False solutions subsidies: €4.8B to CCS

•  ETS (P3) designed to continue same patterns of paying polluters, not making them pay

THEORETICAL TAKE HOMES(Maybe for the discussion - Q&A - Time Permitting)

• Theories of accumulation cycles provide useful (better? best?) interpretive tools for neoliberal climate policy;

--state action in safeguarding conditions for accumulation + role of kapital in financialization

• Data reveal how CO2 trading & market infrastructure* is latest form of accumulation through dispossession;

• ‘Turn to finance’ at close of accumulation cycles, explains why CO2 trading – as well as its infrastructure & other ‘eco-capitalist’ initiatives – originate partly from, and are dominated by, a financial sector whose bias is toward creating novel sources of profit (>> halting the flow of fossil fuels out of the ground).

• Shifting-Stalling-Stealing

(C)Studying

Civil Society & Social Movement(s)Responses

Movement(s) Across Scales:

Local Scale(s)

Dartmouth-JCPES City Survey, 2011

African Americans views in Atlanta, Philadelphia & Cleveland (2011)

Non-state, Social Movement(s)

Respond at National to Global Scales:

Climate Justice

Emergence of Climate Justice Now! (CJN!) Network

Den Haag to Bali, Poznan, CPH, Cancun, Durban & Beyond

Movement Coherence, Resistance, Agitation…led by Students

•

WHAT ARE “YOU” DOING?(i.e., the answer to: WHAT YOU CAN DO…?)

On the Road to Doha (COP-18)

This talk was NOT aboutWHAT TO DO…Maybe at the End

• Building a Climate Rescue Fund--now: Green Climate Fund, from non-finance myriad sources: windfall oil profits (not new, Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of Alaska (P.L. 96-223), of 1983)

• Start petroleum subsidy shifting (~15-40B/yr w/o military)

• Grow Green Development Bank (World Bank props up fossil fuel projects with 15-25X MORE dollars)--now IRENA

• State of play around concerted efforts to End Oil exploration & exploitation (Swedish, Costa Rican, Ecuadorian proposals & projects) “Oil in the Soil”

• (Limited) Success Carbon Taxes (BC, Canada--most recent Feb. 08)

• Countless other new architectures, etc.

• Why: ‘Silver buckshot > silver bullets’

Marches, Mobilizations & Movements“This is what silver buckshot looks like…”

• Locally, Marginalized awareness/agitation

• State activities - CA hotbed, RGGI, etc.

• National • Beyond Coal, other movements

• National tactical lawyering - Against coal (Parenteau) ; against (false?) solutions that don’t deliver “climate justice” (CARB suits)

• Global reform/resistance/rethinking - Mother Earth Rights, Yasuni

• Inside/Outside the Multilaterals -An Energy Sovereignty Conversation…

THANKS!

PLEASE BE IN TOUCH…Dr. Michael Dorsey, Wesleyan U. - College of the Environment

mdorsey01@wesleyan.edu & mkdorsey@aya.yale.edu

• Dorsey, M. K. and G. Gambirazzio. 2012. A critical geography of the CDM. in P. Bond and K. Sharife (eds.) The CDM in Africa. (University of KwaZuluNatal Press).

• Dorsey, M.K. and P. Bond. 2012. Steer clear of this climate ‘Ponzi scheme’. (South Africa) Business Day (24 January).

• Bond, Patrick and M.K. Dorsey 2011. Climate cash deals are killing us. The Sunday Independent. (21 November). p. A6.

• Bond, P. and M. K. Dorsey. 2011. Anatomies of Knowledge and Resistance: Diverse Climate Justice Movements and Waning Eco-Neoliberal Messianism. Australian Journal of Political Economy.

• Dorsey, M. K. and J. Whitington. 2010. Carbon markets need urgent oversight. Carbon Market Europe, Vol. 9, No. 33. (20 August).

END

THANKS AGAINDr. Michael Dorsey, Wesleyan U. - College of the Environment

mdorsey01@wesleyan.edu