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Because China has emerged as the largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter in total annual emissions, to accelerate the pace of GHG emission reduction in China is important to the success of global efforts in addressing climate change. Carbon trading is a market mechanism and key instrument in the mitigation of climate change. This paper explores the policy process and development state to date of China׳s carbon-trade market to understand the emergence and development of that market and to understand what barriers are hampering China׳s carbon-trade market development. To achieve this goal, this paper introduces and analyzes China׳s status in the international market, examines the factors driving carbon-market launching by the Chinese government, and traces the development of mandatory carbon-emission trading and voluntary emission trading. It is argued that China׳s carbon-trading market is confronted with challenges such as the absence of a functional carbon-trading market, inaccuracy of the quota allocation, an imperfect trading mechanism, and lagging legislation. At the present stage, shortcomings such as having no real-time carbon price and dominated spot transactions differentiate China׳s trade market substantially from a functional system. A quick market integration of China׳s carbon market appears remote. It is suggested that specific measures be taken to promote the development of the Chinese carbon-trading market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of contradictions in urban low carbon transitions as engines of change. Following Kojève's reading of contradiction in Hegel's oeuvre, I argue that contradiction is a constitutive feature of low carbon interventions. This is an alternative to conventional readings of contradiction as a provisional encounter of opposites in which one will eventually cancel out the other. I unpack the concept of contra diction in three ways: first, by displaying a Hegelian-inspired understanding of contradiction in relation to change, time, and desire; second, by explaining how inherent contradictions can also be read in relation to the excesses that characterize the deployment of methods of calculation in low carbon interventions; and third, by situating these contradictions within the overall dynamics of carbon governance and purposive attempts to bring about a low carbon transition. The paper explores the practical implications of this analysis in a case of low carbon interventions in social housing in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The case study shows that, if contradictions are at the heart of low carbon interventions, contradiction analysis may provide a direction towards broader reconfigurations of social and technological practices and generate a desire to change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how piloting programmes in China can promote local policy innovations. By using one of the piloting emission trading schemes (ETS) in Guangdong province as a case study, it is argued that the main features of the piloting experiments, particularly in the climate change domain, are largely different from previous local marketization experiments that dominate the reform period of China. Whereas previous experiments are often characterized as bottom-up or indigenous initiatives with strong patronage relations to the pro-reform politicians at central level, the current piloting programmes are often crafted in a top-down fashion that is often misaligned with local market or corporate interests. Hence, local policy innovations are designed, developed and brokered by the local state officers, in order to bridge this central–local interest gap. As a result, successful implementation of these policy innovations largely depends on local political traditions, bureaucratic culture and perceptions of distinctive development needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transport sector is one of the main sources of greenhouse gases, adding in Spain near a quarter of the total national emissions, the majority in road transport. Therefore, road contribution to climate change should be mitigated to achieve the proposed goals in the fight against climate change. Policies and strategies suggest several preventive mitigation options, but have paid little attention to compensatory mitigation. We have conducted a theoretical case study in a Spanish province, Segovia, estimating the carbon dioxide emissions in the road network between 2015 and 2050, and analysing different compensation possibilities through conservation agriculture, agroforestry, afforestation and hedgerow plantation. We have calculated carbon sequestration in the reference period and costs per tonne for each option, estimating the budget range of offsetting road carbon emission, and funding possibilities, especially through fuel taxes. The paper demonstrates that offsetting carbon emissions produced by roads in this area is technically possible and highly desirable, unifying carbon sequestration, biodiversity improvement and rural development. The main challenge is funding, which depends largely on the political will and the awareness of the citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Carbon accounting has evolved rapidly over the past twenty years and now encompasses a wide range of activities with significant financial implications. This paper examines how competence in carbon accounting is being defined and claimed by different actors and communities. Specifically, it focuses on the role of the accountancy profession in carbon accounting, charting its engagement over time and its relationship with other communities involved in carbon accounting. The paper builds on recent work showing that multiple framings and activities are associated with carbon accounting, leading to conflicting views on what it means, how it should be done, and who should be involved. It draws on the concepts of epistemic communities and boundary-work to help explain the role of professions and the emergence of new institutions that mediate between different communities to achieve policy change. We find that, while accountants have undisputed authority in the field of financial reporting of rights and liabilities created under emissions trading schemes (’financial carbon accounting’), their claims to competence in other aspects of organisational carbon accounting overlap with those made by several other communities. Although the accountancy profession’s interest in organisational carbon accounting can be traced back at least as far as 2001, the introduction of emissions trading in Europe in 2005 coincided with the start of a new, as yet largely un-scrutinised, initiative to extend its claims of relevant expertise, through a variety of methods including the promotion of standards for disclosure of physical and strategic climate-related information. The Climate Disclosure Standards Board provides an example of a boundary organisation that has been established by different communities with an interest in carbon accounting, with mutually beneficial results, which has nevertheless resulted in the production of a new Climate Change Reporting Framework that is heavily aligned towards the existing competence of accountancy professionals. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recent debates have drawn attention to the legitimacy challenges faced by new forms of global governance. Privatised governance in particular has come under considerable scrutiny. This paper attempts to contribute to this debate through an analysis of the widespread critiques of climate governance that focus on its 'marketized' or 'privatized' character. Such critiques fundamentally attempt to delegitimise dominant governance mechanisms which can be collectively known as the 'global carbon market'. The paper argues that to understand the political dynamics of legitimacy surrounding these forms of governance we need to take into account the recurrent tension within capitalism between accumulation and legitimation. This focus enables us to understand the legitimacy problems surrounding climate governance. First, it draws attention to the character of the discourses which are critical of marketized climate governance, which attack it precisely because of the forms of accumulation it enables. Second, many of these governance projects have themselves been developed in part precisely in order to overcome legitimacy crises inherent in capital accumulation, and specifically in the current context in relation to the dominance of finance within contemporary capitalism. Finally, it suggests that one of the strategies of firms involved in such governance is to attempt to overcome this legitimacy-accumulation tension in the way that automobility did in the Fordist era. Climate governance practices should be understood as a pursuit of this sort of coherence which might give rise to an 'ecological regime of accumulation' that aims to forestall more radical critiques that argue that capitalism and sustainability are inimical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost two decades since the Kyoto Protocol was adopted, global greenhouse gas emissions are still rising rapidly. We argue that the global climate policy focus on carbon markets has played a significant role in the failure to reduce emissions. There are 16 compliance carbon markets in operation across the world. Many more are planned, although there have been numerous problems with carbon trading, including ineffectiveness, weak regulation and implementation, instances of fraud, little to no emissions reduction and major legitimacy issues for governments and the private sector. In this paper we take a “strong” position, arguing that carbon markets do not have a role to play in a policy scenario that requires radical emissions reductions in order to avoid dangerous greenhouse gas concentrations. We put forward 10 reasons why carbon markets should not be the preferred climate policy choice, which we have collated from positions taken by grassroots social movement organizations, think tanks, NGOs and other political advocacy groups as well as individual scientists and scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Emissions trading has created new forms of exchangeable property which become commodities when traded in markets designed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and mitigate climate change. This paper analyzes a set of social processes which influence who benefits from reductions in emissions generated by primary production from forest ecosystems. Informed by commodification literature, and property and access theory, we suggest that farmers and rural communities cannot derive full benefits from carbon sequestration because they lack key structural and relational mechanisms, such as capital, knowledge, expertise, technology, and, in some cases, even labour. We illustrate this argument by examining three ongoing carbon-forestry projects in China, Ecuador, and Mexico and we highlight its implications for future forestry mitigation projects and programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores whether emissions trading is morally defensible To do so it examines three different kinds of moral consideration Which might be used to judge emissions trading. The first kind makes what I term an 'ethical' objection, and holds that utilising market instruments to combat climate change is inherently objectionable. I examine three versions if this 'ethical' argument but find none persuasive. The remainder of the article considers two additional moral considerations, both of which appeal to principles of justice. Drawing on these it argues that emissions trading can be morally defensible but only it it meets these two demanding moral criteria. First, the costs of emissions trading should be shared equitably. The paper examines what this might mean and criticises the leading account of what constitutes a just distribution of emissions Second, emissions trading must make an appropriate contribution to climate mitigation. A number of ways in which current emissions trading schemes signally fail to meet this second criterion are then noted. The article concludes that emissions trading schemes could in principle be morally defensible but only if new schemes are introduced or existing schemes are radically redesigned in line with the principles outlined in the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]