Carbon permit markets divert emissions curbs into market-making technicalities

Evidence

The project to institute markets in pollution permits is a neoliberal mid-range strategy, better attuned to appeal to neoliberal governments, NGOs, and the more educated segments of the populace, not to mention the all-important FIRE sector of the economy. In effect, this strategy is an elaborate bait-and-switch, where political actors originally bent upon using state power to curb emissions are instead diverted into the endless technicalities of the institution and maintenance of novel markets for carbon permits, with the not unintended consequence that the level of emissions continues to grow apace in the interim. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 928

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Connects to the ‘Grafting & Growth’ trees-as-infrastructure piece, which touches on market-based environmental fixes failing to address root causes; also relevant to the saccharine-sacrifice theme of market mechanisms substituting for real intervention.
• SEED: Essay angle: carbon trading as the prototypical neoliberal policy — a ‘solution’ that converts a regulatory problem into a market to be maintained, with perverse incentives baked in.
• XREF: connects to: Economists’ conflicted interests drive their advocacy of carbon markets — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 928; Efficiency displaces friction onto hidden labor and environmental costs throughout supply chains — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 777; Technofeudalism bifurcates the green agenda into rival fiefs that fossil firms exploit — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 630 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Efficiency displaces friction onto hidden labor and environmental costs throughout supply chains #expands (0.80) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 777
• Economists’ conflicted interests drive their advocacy of carbon markets #complicates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 928
• Technofeudalism bifurcates the green agenda into rival fiefs that fossil firms exploit #expands (0.70) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 630