Journal Papers by Gareth Bryant
Environment & Planning A
The paper analyzes dynamics of accumulation and displacement in the Clean Development Mechanism (... more The paper analyzes dynamics of accumulation and displacement in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It combines the theoretical work of David Harvey and James O’Connor with a case study of the Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited (GFL) HFC-23 destruction project in Gujarat, India. The framework is used to connect the factors driving opportunities for capital accumulation in the CDM market with the causes of social and ecological dislocation at the local project level. We argue the CDM is a spatial fix to the ecological crisis of climate change which secures conditions of production for fossil fuel industries and promotes new sites of accumulation for other companies. The political economic ‘fix’ is dependent on ‘fixing’ a global socio-spatial divide between developed and developing countries down to ‘fixed’ projects at the local level. This spatial fix facilitates a displacement of the costs of responding to the climate crisis from North to South.
Papers by Gareth Bryant
Forthcoming in Environment and Planning - A
The paper analyzes dynamics of accumulation and disp... more Forthcoming in Environment and Planning - A
The paper analyzes dynamics of accumulation and displacement in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It combines the theoretical work of David Harvey and James O’Connor with a case study of the Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited (GFL) HFC-23 destruction project in Gujarat, India. The framework is used to connect the factors driving opportunities for capital accumulation in the CDM market with the causes of social and ecological dislocation at the local project level. We argue the CDM is a spatial fix to the ecological crisis of climate change which secures conditions of production for fossil fuel industries and promotes new sites of accumulation for other companies. The political economic ‘fix’ is dependent on ‘fixing’ a global socio-spatial divide between developed and developing countries down to ‘fixed’ projects at the local level. This spatial fix facilitates a displacement of the costs of responding to the climate crisis from North to South.
PhD Thesis by Gareth Bryant
This thesis evaluates the efficacy of carbon markets by assessing the impacts of the EU ETS and i... more This thesis evaluates the efficacy of carbon markets by assessing the impacts of the EU ETS and its links with the Kyoto Protocol’s flexibility mechanisms, the CDM and JI, on the socio-ecological, economic and political dimensions of climate change. The analysis of the relationship between the causes of climate change and the pollution movements, financial practices and policy debates that constitute these markets is developed by progressively introducing Marxist conceptions of the appropriation, commodification and capitalisation of nature, which organises the thesis in to three parts. The first part develops a critical understanding of the social relations, institutions and actors that produce climate change by appropriating carbon in capitalist economies. Mapping the organisation of capital and carbon to create a database of companies in the EU ETS reveals a concentration and centralisation of emissions among a relatively small number of publicly and privately owned corporations and large-scale power and manufacturing plants. The second part considers the processes that equalise differentiated relationships between installations and emissions, and offset projects and emissions reductions, in commodity form. Case studies of carbon allowance and credit networks associated with energy utilities RWE and E.ON illustrate the potential for the largest polluters to exploit unevenness in the production of climate change by trading transformative for marginal climate actions. The final part examines dynamics of accumulation and contestation in carbon markets in terms of the extent to which the capitalisation of carbon can support the expanded reproduction of capitalism. The crisis of the carbon market accumulation strategy and consolidation of the EU ETS in contestation over its reform are explained as outcomes of the contradictions faced by states in managing marketised environmental policy. Overall, the thesis argues that the EU ETS and its links with the Kyoto mechanisms have worked to entrench the production of climate change, necessitating a more efficacious and democratic approach to climate policy that directly targets the biggest corporate and state polluters.
Book chapters by Gareth Bryant
Challenging the Orthodoxy, 2013
The chapter follows Frank Stilwell's approach to political economywhich emphasises economics as a... more The chapter follows Frank Stilwell's approach to political economywhich emphasises economics as a contest of ideas and the social constitution of the economy-to discuss competing ideas of the 'green economy' and then analyse the political, ecological and economic dimensions of carbon markets. Multilateral institutions, transnational corporations and mainstream environmental NGOs have endorsed a market-based version of the green economy, but it has been contested by social green researchers and environmental justice movements. The chapter challenges optimistic evaluations of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) by market liberal researchers from a political economic perspective. It argues that the EU ETS has been unsuccessful in challenging fossil fuel dependence and that marginal carbon gains have been reversed in the context of economic crisis. Further, the potential for governments to enact alterative polices has been weakened because the instrument has supported polluting companies and constrained social movements. This suggests serious limitations in the capacity of the dominant marketised version of the green economy to drive, and indeed may work to prevent, effective action on climate change.
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Journal Papers by Gareth Bryant
Papers by Gareth Bryant
The paper analyzes dynamics of accumulation and displacement in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It combines the theoretical work of David Harvey and James O’Connor with a case study of the Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited (GFL) HFC-23 destruction project in Gujarat, India. The framework is used to connect the factors driving opportunities for capital accumulation in the CDM market with the causes of social and ecological dislocation at the local project level. We argue the CDM is a spatial fix to the ecological crisis of climate change which secures conditions of production for fossil fuel industries and promotes new sites of accumulation for other companies. The political economic ‘fix’ is dependent on ‘fixing’ a global socio-spatial divide between developed and developing countries down to ‘fixed’ projects at the local level. This spatial fix facilitates a displacement of the costs of responding to the climate crisis from North to South.
PhD Thesis by Gareth Bryant
Book chapters by Gareth Bryant