Constructing Carbon Market Spacetime: Implications for Neo-Modernity

23 Pages Posted: 31 Oct 2008

See all articles by Janelle Knox-Hayes

Janelle Knox-Hayes

University of Oxford; Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Public Policy

Date Written: October 30, 2008

Abstract

Capitalist development is framed in two epochs with distinctive (if overlapping) socio-political, economic and cultural features-modernity and post-modernity. Constant through each epoch has been the drive to increase control of collective organization in space and time. This paper suggests that a new epoch has emerged, where humanity has become such a force of nature so as to destabilize its own environment and ultimately threaten its survival - neo-modernity. This paper explores the creation of markets to commoditize the atmosphere and control greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon markets are an important infrastructure to enable humanity to integrate nature into its socio-political and economic organization. The carbon markets are the beginning, the embodiment of a process designed to reorganize human activities, but also to organize a newly elevated natural environment. As with other epochs, the key to success in neo-modernity is organizing complex and divergent human activities across space and time. Using an institutional approach, built on case-studies and close dialogue with market participants in the London, New York, Chicago, Paris and Washington D.C. this paper analyzes the construction of carbon markets, including 1) how the markets organize the environment in space and time, and 2) how market members organize themselves in space and time. Particular attention is paid to the compressions of the spacetime of carbon commodities through the establishment of platforms, exchanges and verifiers. This paper argues that markets are coordinating networks - the epitome of neo-modernity infrastructure.

Keywords: Carbon Markets, Market Development, Neo-Modernity

JEL Classification: F55, L14, Q54

Suggested Citation

Knox-Hayes, Janelle and Knox-Hayes, Janelle, Constructing Carbon Market Spacetime: Implications for Neo-Modernity (October 30, 2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1292323 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1292323

Janelle Knox-Hayes (Contact Author)

Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Public Policy ( email )

685 Cherry St.
Atlanta, GA 30332-0345
United States

University of Oxford ( email )

Mansfield Road
Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 4AU
United Kingdom

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