Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T23:26:34.796Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - How Should We Deal with Climate Change?

from Part I - Our World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2022

Daniel Scott Souleles
Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
Johan Gersel
Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
Morten Sørensen Thaning
Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
Get access

Summary

The enormity of climate change and the many ways one might address it is overwhelming. This chapter examines two movements that have sought to do so. One, the green bond movement, seeks to explicitly create opportunities for market participants to prioritize labeled sustainable and climate investment. The other, the divestment movement, seeks to move investment away from fossil fuel companies via direct political action that pressures large entities like universities and nonprofits to take their money out of fossil fuel companies and emissions intensive industries. Tripathy’s argument is twofold. First, he describes how the two movements, despite profound ideological and cultural differences, share an underlying assumption that climate change can be addressed by manipulating the workings of financial markets. Our increasing realization that neither of these movements, in isolation or in combination, has been even remotely successful in addressing the problem of climate change should remind us of a classical critique of market solutions: markets are inadequate when it comes to efficiently addressing problems with very distant and broad societal consequences. The chapter thus suggests that the failure of two market approaches with such diverse profiles should make us expand our political will and imagination to look beyond markets for future means to address climate change. Second, Tripathy suggests that in our necessary endeavor to develop alternative solutions, we may seek inspiration from the divestment movement. What is particularly interesting in this movement is its emphasis on democratic ideals of participation and inclusion in the political process itself, as well as its broad conception for a necessary agenda of societal change required to address climate change.

Type
Chapter
Information
People before Markets
An Alternative Casebook
, pp. 184 - 203
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Archer, Matthew. 2020a. “Navigating the sustainability landscape: Impact pathways and the sustainability ethic as moral compass.” Focaal 1 (aop): 115.Google Scholar
Archer, Matthew. 2020b. “Stakes and stakeholders in the climate casino.” GeoHumanities: 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ballantine, John, Olson, Eric, Tripathy, Aneil, Willer, Elise J., Wight, Philip A., Abrams, Michael, and Feldman, Iona. 2015. Final report and recommendations: Brandeis University Exploratory Committee on Fossil Fuel Divestment.Google Scholar
Bregman, Rutger. 2017. Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World. London: Hachette UK.Google Scholar
C40. 2020. “C40: Mayors of 12 major cities commit to divest from fossil fuel companies, invest in green.” C40. www.c40.org/press_releases/cities-commit-divest-invest.Google Scholar
Clapp, Christa, and Pillay, Kamleshan. 2017. “Green bonds and climate finance.” In Climate Finance: Theory and Practice, 79105. Singapore: World Scientific.Google Scholar
Clapp, Christa S., Alfsen, Knut H., Torvanger, Asbjørn, and Lund, Harald Francke. 2015. “Influence of climate science on financial decisions.” Nature Climate Change 5 (2): 8485.Google Scholar
Dal Maso, Giulia. 2020. Risky Expertise in Chinese Financialisation: Returned Labour and the State–Finance Nexus. New York: Springer Nature.Google Scholar
Dupre, Stan, Posey, Taylor, Wang, Tina, and Jamison, Tricia. 2018. Shooting for the moon in a hot air balloon? Measuring how green bonds contribute to scaling up investments in green projects (2° Investing Initiative). https://2degrees-investing.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Green-bonds-updated-paper-Oct-2018.pdf.Google Scholar
Figueres, Christiana, Schellnhuber, Hans Joachim, Whiteman, Gail, Rockström, Johan, Hobley, Anthony, and Rahmstorf, Stefan. 2017. “Three years to safeguard our climate.” Nature News 546 (7660): 593.Google Scholar
Frankel, Christian, Ossandón, José, and Pallesen, Trine. 2019. “The organization of markets for collective concerns and their failures.” Economy and Society 48 (2): 153174.Google Scholar
Fulton, Mark, and Capalino, Reid. 2014. Investing in the clean trillion: closing the clean energy investment gap. Ceres.Google Scholar
Healy, Noel, and Barry, John. 2017. “Politicizing energy justice and energy system transitions: Fossil fuel divestment and a ‘just transition’.” Energy Policy 108: 451459.Google Scholar
Iberdrola. 2021. “Plotting the progress of the Paris Agreement.” Financial Times - Paid Post by Iberdrola. https://iberdrola.ft.com/plotting-the-progress-of-the-paris-agreement.Google Scholar
Initiative, Carbon Tracker. 2014. Recognising Risk, Perpetuating Uncertainty: A Baseline Survey of Climate Disclosures by Fossil Fuel Companies. London.Google Scholar
Jaramillo, Pablo. 2013. “Etnografías en transición: escalas, procesos y composiciones.” Antípoda. Revista de Antropología y Arqueología (16): 1322.Google Scholar
Keucheyan, Razmig. 2016. Nature is a Battlefield: Towards a Political Ecology. Translated by David Broder. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Limbert, Michael, and Summerson Carr, E., eds. 2016. Scale: Discourse and Dimensions of Social Life. Berkely, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
McKibben, Bill. 2012. “Global warming’s terrifying new math.” Rolling Stone 19 (7): 2012.Google Scholar
Meinshausen, Malte, Meinshausen, Nicolai, Hare, William, Raper, Sarah C. B., Frieler, Katja, Knutti, Reto, Frame, David J, and Allen, Myles R. 2009. “Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 C.” Nature 458 (7242): 11581162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nik-Khah, Edward, and Mirowski, Philip. 2019a. “On going the market one better: economic market design and the contradictions of building markets for public purposes.” Economy and Society 48 (2): 268294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nik-Khah, Edward, and Mirowski, Philip. 2019b. “The ghosts of Hayek in orthodox microeconomics: markets as information processors.” In Beverungen, Armin, Mirowski, Philip, and Nik-Khah, Edward u.a. (Hg.): Markets. Lüneburg: meson press 2019, S. 3170. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/12241.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor. 2010. “Polycentric systems for coping with collective action and global environmental change.” Global environmental change 20 (4): 550557.Google Scholar
Tripathy, Aneil. 2017. “Translating to risk: The legibility of climate change and nature in the green bond market.” Economic Anthropology 4 (2): 239250.Google Scholar
Verney, Paul. 2021. “Vacating their seat at the table: the rise of fossil fuel divestment.” Responsible Investor. www.responsible-investor.com/articles/vacating-their-seat-at-the-table-the-rise-of-fossil-fuel-divestment.Google Scholar
Welker, Marina, and Wood, David. 2011. “Shareholder activism and alienation.” Current Anthropology 52 (S3).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×