Hi!Every time I give a talk on climate justice, I get a question on cap-and-trade. Here below I offer the major reasons that people on the frontlines of climate change express against that idea. Again this is not to say that I agree with all of them. It is to list and understand the reasoning of other social movements whose voices are not amplified, which is why we in the U.S. seem to believe that cap-and-trade is the only solution. 1. Cap-and-trade is being sold as the only answer. Actually we all agree that a cap is a fabulous idea. Let's just do that to begin with. Climate change requires bold solutions. Just do it: cap emissions. That is what the global community has been saying since 1992. It is the companies that are refusing to cap - because they want to maintain the ability of making profits. For those who are familiar with what profit means, in economics, fundamentally, profit means someone else loses. So built into that idea is harm, injustice and inequity. I do not believe this to be a sound place to search for solutions, again, specifically, on a global scale. 2. Now, trading: there are several reasons to question the efficacy of this as a solution.a. A carbon trading market is not yet established. why bank the future on something that will be highly unpredictable and in fact is doomed to crash at some point as the current market failures demonstrate clearly. I don't think we can, as a society, bank our future on something so volatile, as a whole. by the way, the markets that have been created thus far are in disarray. b. There are better solutions and technologies that already available that work, that don't depend on the invisible hand of the market to work. why not just invest money in doing that, now? it's a sure thing.
b2. there are other solution / options that are partially capitalist: cap-and-tax, for instance. or as you said, cap-and-dividend. If we understand the magnitude of the problem of climate change and its impacts on human survival and well-being, then I do not believe we can afford to diddle around with market-based solutions that, for people of conscience and historical knowledge, have caused the problems that we are seeing in the current moment. Cap-and-trade has seemed to work in some isolated regions, however, I strongly believe that a global system of cap-and-trade will be fundamentally detrimental to human well being and ecological survival. c. Unevenness in solutions - for the indigenous communities that i have worked with in mexico and malaysia, as well as people of color communities in the U.S., it is absolutely fundamental that currently existing polluting facilities lower their emissions. Those emissions are causing deep health problems in these communities. Governments will not guarantee their land rights or health, and will most likely trade away the well-being of a community or a people in order to maximize profits. We know this from historical experience in timber, oil exploration, mining, palm oil and pulp and paper plantations on native lands in every place in the world. d. for many people who believe that the air, water and land are fundamentally a part of nature and that climate change is a warning and challenge that late industrial societies must actually deeply and fundamentally redefine their relationships to land and nature and to each other, the commodification of water, air and land is fundamentally immoral and unethical. The entire cap-and-trade debate takes away time and brilliant minds from devising real solutions that will work, and that can be implemented, now. It stifles the imagination of what is actually possible.
b2. there are other solution / options that are partially capitalist: cap-and-tax, for instance. or as you said, cap-and-dividend. If we understand the magnitude of the problem of climate change and its impacts on human survival and well-being, then I do not believe we can afford to diddle around with market-based solutions that, for people of conscience and historical knowledge, have caused the problems that we are seeing in the current moment. Cap-and-trade has seemed to work in some isolated regions, however, I strongly believe that a global system of cap-and-trade will be fundamentally detrimental to human well being and ecological survival. c. Unevenness in solutions - for the indigenous communities that i have worked with in mexico and malaysia, as well as people of color communities in the U.S., it is absolutely fundamental that currently existing polluting facilities lower their emissions. Those emissions are causing deep health problems in these communities. Governments will not guarantee their land rights or health, and will most likely trade away the well-being of a community or a people in order to maximize profits. We know this from historical experience in timber, oil exploration, mining, palm oil and pulp and paper plantations on native lands in every place in the world. d. for many people who believe that the air, water and land are fundamentally a part of nature and that climate change is a warning and challenge that late industrial societies must actually deeply and fundamentally redefine their relationships to land and nature and to each other, the commodification of water, air and land is fundamentally immoral and unethical. The entire cap-and-trade debate takes away time and brilliant minds from devising real solutions that will work, and that can be implemented, now. It stifles the imagination of what is actually possible.
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