About a month ago I posted on this blog about the major arguments I get from environmental science "studies" people on my presentation of the climate justice movement is what they perceive as a peculiar view against markets.
And I responded, I don't see why those people have such peculiar attachments to markets and such aversion to thoroughly examining the many options that we have as a society. Their reluctance to discuss all the options is akin to monopoly corporations setting the standards for product development and regulations on a product that they exclusively make.
And I say, that given the experience of the peoples and communities I work with, am aligned with, come from, our experience of markets is more than negative. This knowledge and wisdom is what Guha calls the "environmentalism of the poor" and what DuBois and hooks called "double consciousness" and Pulido, Haraway and Butler have called "situated knowledge" or "strategic essentialism" and so forth.
And one of the questions that many of my colleagues have had for me, is "which ones?"
Which of the Big Greens, or "mainstream environmental organizations," are positioning themselves to profit from these carbon marketing, offsetting, schemes?
The big ones are, to the best of my knowledge, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), World Wildlife Federation (WWF), Conservational international (CI), World Resources Institute (WRI) and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). At least one intergovernmental agency is also pushing REDD and offsets (IUCN) and at least one Scandinavian government is attempting to buy off women's organizations and youth organizations to be in support of REDD and other market-based offset mechanisms in advance of this year's upcoming COP17 talks in Durban, as they attempted, with partial success, in Cancún at COP16.
In the United States, these Big Greens are also instrumental in drafting US climate change policy - certainly, a conflict of interest if they are also in the business of selling carbon credits for projects that are still waiting to take shape, for a maret that is not yet developed.
The Nature Conservancy
For instance, the Nature Conservancy "partnered" with Dow Chemical - to the sum of $10 million - to help Dow incorporate "valuing nature" - ecosystem services and biodiversity - in its corporate business practices.
And, by the way, Mike Tercek, the CEO of TNC, is a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, where he headed the firm's Environmental Strategy Group and Center for Environmental Markets. Goldman Sachs are the men who brought us the economic meltdown and financial crisis that led to millions middle and low income homeowners losing their houses through foreclosure in the last two years.
Environmental Defense Fund
EDF makes no attempts to hide what it is doing. On their "Environmental markets" page, EDF describes potential markets, likely markets (California is one), and operating markets. The page also trumpets that EDF was "the first nonprofit to use markets for environmental progress."
EDF propaganda notwithstanding, a recent research report by Carbon Trade Watch found that the cap-and-trade market in the EU has failed to reduce emissions!
Additionally, the EU and potential emerging markets are already well known for structural problems:
1. vulnerability to fraud and scams in the market / verification of credits
a. the inherent problem of US or European companies manufacturing in the Global South (like China, Indonesia, Kenya, Honduras ..) and the carbon generated getting counted in the manufacturing country, not in the country where consumption and profits accrue. (see the article in the UK Guardian)
2. the creation of a global land grab, especially on the lands of peasants, small farmers and indigenous peoples
Here is a video produced by SommerFilms from an interview from the Upper Xingu (Amazonas, Brasil) - showing the problems with REDD programs in relationship to indigenous peoples:
similar stories abound in Papua New Guinea, Ecuador, Indonesia, the Atlantic Forest of Brazil and other places and are documented in the No REDD Reader.
This is just a draft post and I will be posting a more polished piece soon! Thanks for your patience.
"Putting at the people's disposal the intellectual and technical capital snatched from the colonial universities."