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Of Heroes, Villains and Climate Capitalism: A Response to Larry Lohmann
Author(s) -
Paterson Matthew,
Newell Peter
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
development and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-7660
pISSN - 0012-155X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7660.2012.01796.x
Subject(s) - capitalism , citation , politics , sociology , global warming , media studies , library science , political science , climate change , law , computer science , ecology , biology
There is now an important and lively debate about the role of carbon markets as one component of collective responses to the threat of climate change. For us, the question of their ecological effectiveness and political function in engaging powerful actors is subsumed by a broader one that we all have to face: what will it take to bring about a transformation in the global economy from one based on fossil fuels to one which is based on low carbon development? This conversation takes place in a world in which, like it not (and we don’t), control of the production, technology and finance to deliver such a transformation in the time available to keep global warming below tolerable thresholds, lies in large part in private hands. What does this mean for those of us wanting to see aggressive mitigation actions within short timeframes? This critical question forms the starting point for our book Climate Capitalism. Our contribution in the present paper is aimed at continuing a constructive engagement with the question of the political as well as environmental function of carbon markets against the backdrop of this larger and more fundamental debate about how change occurs, and what forms of change are possible, in a capitalist global political economy. It responds to a review essay by Larry Lohmann entitled ‘Capital and Climate Change’, published in this journal,1 in which he provides a sweeping critique of our book Climate Capitalism alongside several others. His review of our book seems to us to be grotesquely unfair, and we attempt to respond here to some of the main misunderstandings and misrepresentations that he makes of our book. We leave the reader to judge whether or not the personalized attacks about the ‘amateurish’ nature of our work, or the description of us as ‘contemptuous’, are justified, and concentrate our remarks on the substance instead. The essence of Lohmann’s interpretation of our book is to lump it in with Nicholas Stern and Anthony Giddens as representatives of capital’s take on climate change politics. He sees us as simple handmaidens of capital, arguing for responses that simply roll out a set of projects and programmes that suit global business interests, and ignoring the social dislocations, environmental