Paper short abstract:

The construction of tradable carbon emissions depends on a distributed set of social and technical actions. However, these actions attain value from the absence of other (non-realized) actions. Consequently this paper argues that carbon markets trade in ‘commoditized absences’.

Paper long abstract:

The calculation, crediting and trading of carbon emissions has become one of the most acknowledged but also most politicized ways that climate change is made present in environmental policy, in climate markets, and in everyday consumption of western consumers. This presence is nonetheless frequently contested and manipulated because of the multiple ways that carbon can be identified in different social, technical and scientific realities and actions. This paper wants to argue that this presence - even in its quantified and 'factual' form as 'verified' or 'certified' emission reductions - relies on simultaneous absence. This is not a passive absence, but an active addition or negation of alternatives (non-emissions, would-be emissions, 'baselines' or 'business as usual' scenarios of emissions). In this way the paper aims to shed light on the continued ontologically speculative nature of carbon emissions as a measure of climate change, and how carbon markets commoditize and trade in 'absences'.