The Value of Carbon: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Implications of Carbon Pricing as a Market-based Solution in the Combat Against Climate Change

This thesis criticises carbon pricing as a policy to combat climate change. The first problem is that carbon pricing offers an instrumental solution that fails to address the underlying causes of the climate crisis. By adopting an economic approach that prioritises individual preferences and economic efficiency and is therefore inherently short-term oriented, carbon pricing does not help in the fight against climate change. It does not address fundamental ethical questions about the kind of society we collectively aspire to and makes no claim to underlying processes of value creation that are central to the climate change debate. Second, carbon pricing not only focuses on the wrong aspect of the problem, but also has the opposite effect. It reinforces the exploitation of natural resources by entrenching capitalist norms. These two issues give rise to the third concern raised in this thesis, which is that carbon pricing, as a market-based solution, corrupts the value of nature. This...Show moreThis thesis criticises carbon pricing as a policy to combat climate change. The first problem is that carbon pricing offers an instrumental solution that fails to address the underlying causes of the climate crisis. By adopting an economic approach that prioritises individual preferences and economic efficiency and is therefore inherently short-term oriented, carbon pricing does not help in the fight against climate change. It does not address fundamental ethical questions about the kind of society we collectively aspire to and makes no claim to underlying processes of value creation that are central to the climate change debate. Second, carbon pricing not only focuses on the wrong aspect of the problem, but also has the opposite effect. It reinforces the exploitation of natural resources by entrenching capitalist norms. These two issues give rise to the third concern raised in this thesis, which is that carbon pricing, as a market-based solution, corrupts the value of nature. This happens at the societal level, by reducing the concept of value to economic terms and causing moral erosion in public discourse; and at the individual level, by externalising and abstracting, and 'managing' nature, thereby reducing individual emotional engagement with it.Show less

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The Value of Carbon: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Implications of Carbon Pricing as a Market-based Solution in the Combat Against Climate Change