Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
On the same lines, the conception of CDM is fundamentally based on the opti-
mism that mitigation of, and adaptation to climate variations can be achieved
through technological solutions. It envisions that the systematic deployment of
environment-friendly solutions in the form of cleaner technologies in the existing
system of production processes and in the augmentation of the same in industrial
proliferation through a network of actors can effectively address the climate
change problem. It is very much in line with the approach of EM that focuses on
environmental improvements through resource efficient innovation (Jänicke
2008), particularly the incremental improvement of technology. Incremental im-
provement, according to Jänicke (2008), denotes the application of cleaner tech-
nologies for different dimensions of efficiencies such as material intensity, energy
intensity, transport intensity, surface intensity and risk intensity whereas the radi-
cal innovation is understood as the market introduction of a new technology that
enhances the life cycle of a product. Thus, CDM is in harmony with EM with re-
gard to its technological optimism coupled with its inherent predisposition to the
potential of industrial capitalism to overcome the environmental problems created
as part of the industrialisation process.
The form of technological optimism in EM, particularly that of super-
industrialisation, is very close to technological determinism, which considers
technology as value neutral autonomous process with an innate capacity for logi-
cal progression, thereby black-boxing the social processes that construct technol-
ogy - a point that is thoroughly challenged by the Science and Technology Studies
(STS) on the basis of the contextually and ideologically contingent nature of
knowledge and instrument creation.
Commodification of Nature
The commodification of nature is one of the essential operational prerequisites for
EM. Drawing from Mol's 'economization of ecology' as an introduction to eco-
nomic concepts, mechanisms and principles to environmental policy, Murphy
identifies that this process may involve
“placing an economic value to nature with the general aim of encouraging economic ac-
tors to take the environment into consideration” (Murphy 2000, p. 3).
This goes in line with another postulate of EM where environment can be seen as
an increasingly autonomous arena of decision making (Buttel 2000). The proposi-
tion for commodification of nature in the EM perspective is derived from the fun-
damental conviction that the market can be more effective and efficient than the
state in dealing with ecological problems. On the other hand, in reference to Kyoto
mechanisms, it is argued that by creating economic and emission-reduction ac-
creditation schemes the climate change regime has sought to create market tools
for trading the commodity of GHG emissions, which points to the capitalistic
identification of new resources and the commodification of the atmospheric com-
mons (Glover 1999). This is one of the ways in which, as referred to by Son-
nenfeld and Mol (2002), environment is institutionalised in the economic domain.
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