Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
initiatives including transport, infrastructure and
power use improvements, green job creation,
economy-wide energy improvements,
and building modernisation (energy effi-
ciency). Carbon risk management opportunities
abound.
One question remained. How did the key
driver of the carbon markets argued thus far, an
ideological free market-driven hegemony push-
ing discourse toward market solutions rather than
taxing come about? This view of the market's
efficiency as a solution to climate change rather
than a tax on carbon intensive goods has become
embedded in the OECD approach. For this, it is
important to note the notion of hegemony and
embeddedness, as it influences why carbon as a
tool for risk management is today accepted.
The 'ideological free market-driven hege-
mony' mentioned above is understood in the
neo-Gramscian sense of achieving both control
and consent for control by defining the discourse,
embedding it in society, and influencing the state
through civil society (Andree, 2007). What this
means, according to the interpretation of Italian
philosopher economist Antonio Gramsci's concept
of hegemony, is that civil society—the realm of
non-profits and NGOs that intercede between
the individual and the state—is where individu-
als form political identities. Civil society in this
interpretation is the primary sphere of influence
for government or businesses. Understood in
the context of climate change, the influence of
studies like the Stern Review in 2006-2007 were
monumental in constructing the governmental and
private sector approach to its solutions.
One should also view the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports as a
critical milestone in the development of climate
change, crucial in establishing scientific consensus
and leading to the embedded discourse understood
today. As substantiated ideas (i.e. IPCC) are
constructed in civil society, norms begin to form,
and as it effuses discourse becomes embedded in
bloc' emerges, according to Gramsci, when civil
society forms alliances with other classes, political
parties, branches of government, etc., converging
on a strategic and coherent set of ideas (Andree,
2007). Through this historical bloc—which in the
case of climate change includes the attendees of
the international legislation debating COPs in Bali
and Copenhagen—hegemony is achieved. The
success of the hegemony is visible through care-
fully formulated economic forces, institutions, and
ideologies reflected in civil society. In the struggle
for hegemony, 'wars of position' are undertaken
by actors to gain influence in and above civil
society. These wars of position are subtly identi-
fied by media campaigns, use of language, and
depiction of issues: consider the polar bear-laden
advertisements. However, successful hegemony
is attained only through consent—built upon the
acceptance of discourse in society: the shift from
'must we act?' to 'how must we act?'
One additional theory underpins the argument
of the shift toward environmentally aware busi-
ness models that identify and source carbon as a
tool for risk management. As in the discussion of
hegemony, cognitive-ideational forces affect civil
society mentalities to produce a sense of collective
subjectivity. The degree of institutionalisation of
climate change depends on a number of things,
most importantly the cohesion of civil society
behind the discourse which succeeds in either
embedding it or not, and the ability of the norm
resulting from the ideas to define state interests
(Bernstein, 2000). In today's neoliberal landscape,
the successful institutionalization of the concept
culminates in the shift of environmental and liberal
economic concepts toward 'liberal environmental-
ism.' The prevalence of this discourse, contributes
to climate-change fighting policymaking in the
OECD and is gradually embedding itself in de-
veloping countries (CDM host countries). Liberal
environmentalism—according to Bernstein—
“predicates environmental protection on the
promotion and maintenance of a liberal economic
