David Layfield

Turning carbon into gold: the financialisation of international climate policy

Climate policy is undergoing a process of financialisation. The development of carbon markets around the world has seen the creation of new ranges of essentially financial products, the trading of which is purported to be an effective means to reduce carbon emissions. There are, however, good reasons to doubt the effectiveness of carbon markets in reducing carbon emissions. I highlight the distance between carbon traders and the ‘real’ environment, and the complexity of contemporary financial markets and products as particular problems. I conclude by considering two approaches to reform: through tighter regulation of carbon markets; and through changing the political framework in which markets operate.

International policy on climate change: after Kyoto, what next?

These two important contributions to the debate on the international politics and economics of climate change could not be more timely. The final communiqué from the Copenhagen Conference has been interpreted widely as a failure, a short document, devoid of targets, devoid of funding and lacking any ‘hard’ numbers or commitments. The current situation is that the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2 years, time. As yet, there is nothing to replace it. As the contributors to these volumes point out, the international ‘architecture’ established under Kyoto is also far from perfect. Various carbon markets, established around the world, are suffering from falling volumes and fluctuating prices, making long-term planning for technical change virtually impossible. The clean development mechanism (CDM) wanes in the face of high transaction costs, project approval difficulties and street level resistance in Southern nations hosting CDM projects. These volumes offer critical appraisals of current climate policies before moving on to explore possible alternatives for climate policy. Contributors to both consider whether existing international agreements on climate change and existing climate policies can be modified and improved or whether a complete change of direction is necessary. Aldy and Stavins’ book is a summary of the much larger Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements, which brings together political scientists, economists, scientists and others to research the most effective policies for tackling climate change. This is a tightly focused collection, which considers a specific area of international environmental policy in considerable detail. It includes two substantive introductory chapters by the editors, followed by a series of chapters containing summaries of research undertaken by contributors to the Harvard project. The book edited by Helm and Hepburn is a comprehensive collection of essays by political scientists, Environmental Politics Vol. 19, No. 4, July 2010, 657–661

BOOK REVIEWS edited by Adam D. Morton: Richard Peet Geography of Power: Making Global Economic Policy: Zed Books, 2007, 216 pp. ISBN: 978-1-84277-711-4 (pbk) £18.99

In this useful and very interesting addition to the literature on global political economy, Richard Peet uses concepts and themes familiar from neo-Gramscian international political economy, and also from Foucault, to unmask the politics of economic policy. In doing this, Peet is on similar ground to David Harvey (2005); Kees van der Pijl (1998); Steven Gill (2008); and William Robinson (2004). Peet’s approach is slightly different to that of those authors, however, and he is able to add something distinctive to their work, as well as offering some new ideas for alternatives and activism. The theoretical technique that Peet employs is, as the book’s title suggests, to construct a geography of power in the Foucauldian sense. In discussing this approach, he says, ‘I favour an intermediate level of analysis, an institutional geography of power, drawing on broader concepts―ideology, hegemony, discourse―to give critical thinking more accuracy and believability’ (p. 3). At first, I was sceptical about this strategy; but Peet’s careful development of Foucauldian concepts, and their application to something very specific, enables him to draw critical attention to different aspects of economic policy formation. In particular, Peet is keen to identify something that transcends Gramsci’s notion of ‘common sense’. What he draws from Foucault and what brings the geography of power into perspective is a concept of ‘expert sense (p. 15). ‘Expert sense’ represents a claim to power through expertise, and it is the staff of the International Financial Institutions, first world governments and elite universities who claim expert sense in economic policy formation. The geographical dimension of expert sense in economic policy is important in Peet’s argument in two ways. First, he argues, ‘the world cities where governance institutions congregate, and experts co-mingle, display landscapes imbued with the trappings of power. Locating the headquarters and much of the bureaucracy in such centres lends the policies they prescribe an aura of Western authority’ (p. 2). Second, he offers the argument that ‘this ambient content is released as “power effects” as policies extend over space ... and are adopted, under varying conditions of compulsion, in capital cities all over the world’ (p. 2). Following an introductory discussion of this, the book is divided into substantive chapters covering economic power, ideological power and political power. Later chapters discuss subhegemony in South Africa, counter hegemony, and the book concludes with a final word on the three ‘neos’: neoconservatism, neoliberalism and neoimperialism. The chapters on economic and ideological power follow David Harvey’s (2005) analysis quite closely in sketching out the intellectual history of neoliberalism through the work of von Mises, Hayek and Friedman, and the World Bank, IMF and WTO. Geographically, neoliberalism emerges as a distinctively American ideology, despite its major theoretical tenets’ being the work of European intellectuals. Washington, and the Ivy League colleges emerge as the principal centres of economic and ideological power, with significant interchange of personnel, cross-fertilisation of ideas through shared journals such as Foreign Affairs, and shared interests in common problems. Book Reviews

The International Political Economy of Work and Employability, by Phoebe MooreMoorePhoebeThe International Political Economy of Work and Employability, London: Palgrave, 2010; 192 pp: 9780230517943 (hbk) £55

Fowler T (this issue, 2012) ‘Does fighting back still matter? The Canadian autoworkers, capitalist crisis and confrontation, Capital & Class 36(3). Gall G, Fiorito J (2011) The backward march of labour halted? Or, what is to be done with ‘union organising’? The cases of Britain and the USA, Capital & Class 35(2): 233-51. Michaels WB (2006) The Trouble with Diversity: How we Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality. New York: Metropolitan Books. Michaels WB (2010) Identity politics: A zero-sum game, New Labour Forum 19(2): 8-11.

Book Review: The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace With the Planet, by John Bellamy Foster

clearly explained why, for instance, Eastern European countries are not discussed in the book, or why is there such a focus on the subsidiaries of the big companies to different countries, and not a focus on the countries of origin per se (for example, Germany, the usa, Japan or Korea). But leaving these issues aside, the book is a very good introduction to an interesting subject, and may prove useful to anyone concerned with the effect of lean production on the automobile industry’s shopfloor.