Dear Matt, Ronnie, and others,
I've done some work on what I call "selling
nature to save it" that might be germane to your
ideas for an ISA panel. Here's an abstract of a
paper I've drafted:
Trading Environmental Services: Can Nature Pay
It's Way in the Global Marketplace?
Commodification of environmental services -
carbon storage, water filtration, flood control,
wildlife habitats, genetic diversity, and scenic
beauty - has become a leading environmental
policy trend. Governments (including China's) and
international agencies (such as the World Bank)
sponsor programs for Payment for Environmental
Services such as watershed functions and schemes
for transnational trade in carbon sequestration.
Most discourse in support of these "markets"
reflects a neoliberal ideal of private
entrepreneurialism and economic efficiency.
However, actual ES trading schemes depend
substantially on regulation, subsidies, and
support by public institutions. Their advocates
anticipate vast new revenues for climate-change
mitigation and biodiversity preservation. Some
claim that by simultaneously fostering economic
growth, conservation, and social equity, the
commercialization of ES provides the missing link
between conservation and development. This paper
questions whether transnational ES markets can
yield either net conservation or net equity
gains. Instead, to the extent that transnational
markets in "permits to pollute" make it easier to
avoid reduction of GHGs and other ecological
damage at the source, they promote net
environmental harm. Moreover, carbon
sequestration, waste storage, or habitat
maintenance are cheaper in global South because
land rents, wages, and living standards are lower
there. Thus, the pivotal premise of low-cost
conservation by commercialization depends on the
continuation of extreme socio-economic
inequality. By leaving out the greater part of
nature's meanings and uses to the world's poor
majority, global ES trading radically discounts
nature's existing and future values. "Global'
carbon markets and other transnational ES trading
would postpone accounting for environmental costs
by displacing the ecological crises of advanced
industrial societies to poorer places and less
powerful people.
I expect to be at ISA 08, so please let me know
if this is relevant to your interests.
Kathy
I'd be keen on such a panel. I was going to
propose it a little wider, on 'climate
capitalism'. I,m happy to put this together if
people are interested.
Mat
Matthew Paterson
Professeur titulaire École d'études politiques
Université d'Ottawa 75 rue Laurier Ottawa K1N 6N5 Canada
613 562 5800 x 1716 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<http://www.socialsciences.uottawa.ca/pol/fra/profdetails.asp?login=mpaterson>http://www.socialsciences.uottawa.ca/pol/fra/profdetails.asp?login=mpaterson
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Ronnie Lipschutz
Sent: Tue 3/13/2007 2:47 PM
To: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Carbon offsets
Dear All:
Apropos the article just circulated by Stacy V., is anyone interested in
assembling one or more panels on carbon offsets for next year's ISA?
Ronnie Lipschutz
P.S.: Stacy--in case this gets bounced back to me, could you circulate the
question to the GEP list?
*************************************************************************
Ronnie D. Lipschutz, Professor of Politics, Dept. of Politics, 234 Crown
College
University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064
Phone: 831-459-3275/Fax: 831-459-3125;
<http://people.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/home.html>http://people.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/home.html
*************************************************************************
--
Kathleen McAfee
Department of International Relations
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94321
Office: HSS 381 Tel: 415 405 2412
Office hours Spring 2007: Wed. 3-4pm, Thurs 4-6pm (after Jan. 24)
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
