and pathways, perhaps more suited to diverse social and ecological contexts, and
drawing on wider ranges of knowledge and innovation, including from citizens
and grassroots users (see Smith and Ely, this book). Meanwhile, reliance on
technofixes detracts attention from the underlying social, economic and political
structures that support limits-breaching pathways, and the need to challenge and
transform these.
Finally, green limits discourses increasingly support and justify market fixes.
Planetary boundaries discourses are again aligning with those of the green economy
to support the revaluation and trade of aspects of ecosystems now (re)defined as
‘natural capital’ and financialized commodities. They include schemes for trading
carbon credits and offsetting emissions, associated with clean energy, forests and
agriculture under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), United Nations
collabotarive initiative on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest
Degredation (UN-REDD) and voluntary schemes, emerging markets for ‘offsetting’
species and biodiversity loss, and an array of payments for ecosystem services (PES)
schemes. These are unfolding in many projects around the world, variously
promoted by private, public and civil society actors, and linked with new forms
of venture capital and speculation. UNEP (2011), The Economics of Ecosystems
and Biodiversity (TEEB), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development
(WBCSD), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), World
Wildlife Fund and The Natural Capital Project have all embraced such discourses
and practices that link market-based instruments with green economies and green
limits via natural capital. A financialization agenda was consolidated at the Rio+20
Summit, including several ‘High Level Dialogues’ hosted by the World Bank
(Levidow, 2014).
While proponents often emphasize livelihood benefits (e.g. UNEP, 2011),
whether these are realized in practice is highly variable. On the contrary, inter -
ventions promoted through these green discourses can often become forms of ‘green
grabbing’ that dispossess local resource users of rights and livelihoods (Fairhead
et al., 2012). Narrow financial valuation of ecosystems and landscapes overlooks
alternative green meanings; look back to our tropical forest example, where carbon
commodities are clearly only one among multiple ways of under standing and valuing
this ecosystem. The discourse of natural capital, it can be argued, ‘chops up’ and
individuates bits of nature, removing them from their social context (Unmüßig
et al., 2012, p28). In the process, social arrangements in which people have held,
valued and sustained resources, such as community-based commons arrangements,
may be invisibilized and undermined (Levidow, 2014). As argued strongly by civil
society actors at Rio, this green economy discourse proposes solutions to environmental crisis grounded in the same capitalist structures that produced the problems
in the first place. The commoditization of nature reinforces the power of
multinational corporations and financial institutions (ALAI and TNI, 2012, p11).
By ignoring the structural social and political–economic conditions that shape
planetary pressures, it is in a poor position to transform these towards genuinely
greener futures.
36 Melissa Leach
drawing on wider ranges of knowledge and innovation, including from citizens
and grassroots users (see Smith and Ely, this book). Meanwhile, reliance on
technofixes detracts attention from the underlying social, economic and political
structures that support limits-breaching pathways, and the need to challenge and
transform these.
Finally, green limits discourses increasingly support and justify market fixes.
Planetary boundaries discourses are again aligning with those of the green economy
to support the revaluation and trade of aspects of ecosystems now (re)defined as
‘natural capital’ and financialized commodities. They include schemes for trading
carbon credits and offsetting emissions, associated with clean energy, forests and
agriculture under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), United Nations
collabotarive initiative on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest
Degredation (UN-REDD) and voluntary schemes, emerging markets for ‘offsetting’
species and biodiversity loss, and an array of payments for ecosystem services (PES)
schemes. These are unfolding in many projects around the world, variously
promoted by private, public and civil society actors, and linked with new forms
of venture capital and speculation. UNEP (2011), The Economics of Ecosystems
and Biodiversity (TEEB), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development
(WBCSD), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), World
Wildlife Fund and The Natural Capital Project have all embraced such discourses
and practices that link market-based instruments with green economies and green
limits via natural capital. A financialization agenda was consolidated at the Rio+20
Summit, including several ‘High Level Dialogues’ hosted by the World Bank
(Levidow, 2014).
While proponents often emphasize livelihood benefits (e.g. UNEP, 2011),
whether these are realized in practice is highly variable. On the contrary, inter -
ventions promoted through these green discourses can often become forms of ‘green
grabbing’ that dispossess local resource users of rights and livelihoods (Fairhead
et al., 2012). Narrow financial valuation of ecosystems and landscapes overlooks
alternative green meanings; look back to our tropical forest example, where carbon
commodities are clearly only one among multiple ways of under standing and valuing
this ecosystem. The discourse of natural capital, it can be argued, ‘chops up’ and
individuates bits of nature, removing them from their social context (Unmüßig
et al., 2012, p28). In the process, social arrangements in which people have held,
valued and sustained resources, such as community-based commons arrangements,
may be invisibilized and undermined (Levidow, 2014). As argued strongly by civil
society actors at Rio, this green economy discourse proposes solutions to environmental crisis grounded in the same capitalist structures that produced the problems
in the first place. The commoditization of nature reinforces the power of
multinational corporations and financial institutions (ALAI and TNI, 2012, p11).
By ignoring the structural social and political–economic conditions that shape
planetary pressures, it is in a poor position to transform these towards genuinely
greener futures.
36 Melissa Leach