Global: Financialization, commodification and carbon

The carbon markets operating today under the aegis of the UN, the EU, and a variety of state and non-state actors are the default international approach to the climate crisis. Reflecting, extending and deepening neoliberalism, these markets grew rapidly until 2008, when they began to stumble, following the financial crash, the 2010 failure of the US Congress to pass proposed carbon trading legislation, uncertainty about the future of UN climate treaties, and a recent spate of criminal and other scandals. This article explains how carbon commodities work through a process of radical disembedding - in particular, through disembedding the climate issue from the historical question of how to organise for structural, long-term change aimed at keeping remaining fossil fuels in the ground.