Climate change, carbon trading and civil society Negative returns on South African investments

With climate change posing perhaps the gravest threat to humanity in coming decades, and with free market economics still hegemonic, it is little wonder so much effort has gone into creating a carbon market, no matter how much evidence has recently emerged about its flaws.

South Africa, a revealing pilot site, has initiated carbon trading projects with adverse economic, environmental and social impacts. South Africa pollutes at a rate twenty times higher than even the United States of America, measured by CO2 emissions generated by each GDP dollar per person, so the idea of trading for carbon reductions is seductive – and potentially lucrative. Current state policy is supportive and a former environmental minister is a market promoter, alongside the World Bank, the Dutch government and big oil companies.

Editors Patrick Bond, Rehana Dada and graham Erion of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the transnational institute have assembled this cutting-edge collection to highlight the urgent situation.

Introduction
Patrick Bond, Rehana Dada and Graham Erion

Dirty politics: South African energy
Patrick Bond

Interrogating nuclear and renewable energy
Muna Lakhani and Vanessa Black

The South African projects
Graham Erion, Larry Lohmann and Trusha Reddy

Low-hanging fruit always rots first: observations from South Africa’s carbon market
Graham Erion

Climate fraud and carbon colonialism
Heidi Bachram

World Bank carbon colonies
Daphne Wysham

Prototype carbon fund beneficiaries
Larry Lohmann, Jutta Kill, Graham Erion and Michael K. Doresy

Big oil and Africans
groundwork

Oil companies and African wealth depletion
Patrick Bond

Conclusion
Patrick Bond