The semiotics of carbon
Atmospheric space, fungibility, and the production of scarcity
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2048901 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Raquel Rodrigues Machaqueiro (0000-0002-2306-8257, George Washington University, corresponding author), Raquel Machaqueiro |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 82-93 |
| Publication date | 2017-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Economic Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2330-4847 • E-ISSN: 2330-4847 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/sea2.12074 |
| OpenAlex | W2577457551 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 24 |
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, greenhouse gases are responsible for climate change, and for this reason, the reduction of these gases' emissions has become one of the main tenets of international climate change policy. Against this backdrop, parties at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change decided that emissions trading would be one of the main instruments to reduce emissions. Through the critical examination of several documents about carbon markets, this article argues that the codification of carbon dioxide as a commodity constitutes a semiotic process that transforms atmospheric space into a more tangible product, providing it with several levels of fungibility. Within this semiotic process, carbon is also fetishized, acquiring a mystic power. While identifying dissonances between the belief in markets' efficiency to solve the problem of climate change and demands for governments to address the problem of excessive supply, this article asserts that carbon's fetishization results in a tautology sustaining carbon markets' existence; that is, the existence of carbon markets becomes an end in itself, independent of their efficiency in reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Climate change · Commodification · Commodity · Economics · Economy · Epistemology · Greenhouse gas · Market economy · Natural resource economics · Semiotics · Global Energy and Sustainability Research · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance · Ecology
Does ecosystem services valuation reflect local cultural valuations? Comparative analysis of resident perspectives in four major urban river ecosystems
From house of spirits to carbon sink
Price and prejudice
The financialization of rivers
Symbols of Climate Action
Environmentality by the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change
Climate Change
Earth's Data
From Modern Production to Imagined Primitive
Carbon Trading, Climate Justice and the Production of Ignorance
Sweetness and power
Justice, nature, and the geography of difference
An Engine, Not a Camera
Uneven Development
The Redd menace
Marketing and making carbon dumps
The Matter of Carbon
An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence
Commodifying what nature
Great Transformation
Accumulation by Decarbonization and the Governance of Carbon Offsets
The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America
Culture in Practice
In Amazonia
From Latour to late industrialism
Fungibility
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2026 (9) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |