Performing Carbon’s Materiality: the production of carbon offsets and the framing of exchange (original) (raw)

Abstract

In this paper I provide a first-hand account of a trip designed to verify the existence of a carbon forestry offset in Costa Rica. In so doing, I reflect on how various actors become the stabilized calculative agents of scientists, state bureaucrats, indigenous leaders, GPS devices, trees, signs, and field reports that such trips require. In addition, I show how various articulations of these actors, and their emergent agencies, simultaneously maintains both the carbon offset as a commodity object as well as a field of action and communication that allows for such an object to be exchanged. In short, I consider the verification of an offset as a performance. Doing so, I examine the agency of some actors in this process, and account for the uneven power relations inherent in such a process. Specifically, I advance three arguments. First, the agency of actors is constituted, in part, by various calculative devices, which themselves simultaneously occupy an unstable position of being both a material object and an abstraction. Second, the normative power of the performance I witnessed derives from its relation to the abject: spaces and ways of being that are unintelligible to the logics of offsetting that nonetheless serve to further reiterate the need for an offset’s calculative frame. Third, performing an offset is a self-reflexive process, and it is through the self-reflexivity of actors involved that the qualities of “the forest” emerge in ways that confound the stability of an offset commodity. In this way, the biophysical qualities of the forest are not necessarily barriers to its commodification. Instead, it are the reflexive practices inherent in performing “the economic” that can serve to confound the emergence of the commodified forest.

Figures (2)

Figure 1: “Carbon territory” sign. Example of signs that were posted on the borders of the carbon offset territory described in this article. The sign reads: “Property under private conservation; program of environmental service payments; hunting, logging and plant and animal extraction from the forest is prohibited; help us conserve the natural resources of Talamanca by enjoying them today and leaving ther for the next generation”. Photo by author. a budding, carbon rich secondary forest, a monetary transaction that ultimately neutralizes the climatic impact of the consumer’s greenhouse gas emissions. In practice, this economic transaction requires considerable work by a diverse group of actors to transform this block of land into a space of commodified carbon storage. Government bureaucrats, members of NGOs, employees of the company, and indigenous political leaders came together to carve physical markers onto the landscape. Some of them cut trails that marked the borders of this space, while others posted signs on the territory’s edge that signified that this space is dedicated to conservation and is “off-limits” to hunting, farming, or fishing (figure 1). In addition to the physical markers, this group also produced a number of abstract representations of the territory. They carefully measured and calculated the boundaries of the space using GPS devices, and used these data to produce maps that represented the area as a Cartesian space of carbon storage. These maps were then circulated among this broad network of producers, certifiers, regulators, and consumers that brought this space into being as a site of commodified carbon storage.

Figure 1: “Carbon territory” sign. Example of signs that were posted on the borders of the carbon offset territory described in this article. The sign reads: “Property under private conservation; program of environmental service payments; hunting, logging and plant and animal extraction from the forest is prohibited; help us conserve the natural resources of Talamanca by enjoying them today and leaving ther for the next generation”. Photo by author. a budding, carbon rich secondary forest, a monetary transaction that ultimately neutralizes the climatic impact of the consumer’s greenhouse gas emissions. In practice, this economic transaction requires considerable work by a diverse group of actors to transform this block of land into a space of commodified carbon storage. Government bureaucrats, members of NGOs, employees of the company, and indigenous political leaders came together to carve physical markers onto the landscape. Some of them cut trails that marked the borders of this space, while others posted signs on the territory’s edge that signified that this space is dedicated to conservation and is “off-limits” to hunting, farming, or fishing (figure 1). In addition to the physical markers, this group also produced a number of abstract representations of the territory. They carefully measured and calculated the boundaries of the space using GPS devices, and used these data to produce maps that represented the area as a Cartesian space of carbon storage. These maps were then circulated among this broad network of producers, certifiers, regulators, and consumers that brought this space into being as a site of commodified carbon storage.

These efforts, however, are not enough. The spatial extent of the forest, and its ephemerality means that this offset is in constant danger of becoming undone: trees might be illegally removed from the site; farmers might cut and plant a clandestine field of plantains; a fire might break out; consumers might suspect that this offset is a “fraud.” Therefore, once a year, this same group gets together in order to reiterate this carbon erritory anew. Guided by GPS devices, they inspect the space’s physical boundaries; hey repair signs, re-cut trails, and take photographs of the site (figure 2). GPS devices, maps, signs, trails, and cameras: these artifacts of calculation, measure, and inscription join the human actors of scientists, bureaucrats, politicians, farmers, businessmen, and consumers in the ongoing and iterative process of maintaining this precarious object of exchange — the carbon offset commodity. Figure 2: Scenes from a carbon verification trip. Right: an NGO representative checks her GPS device before crossing a stream. Left: single file hiking along pre-determined trails was the primary formation during the trip. Photos by author.

These efforts, however, are not enough. The spatial extent of the forest, and its ephemerality means that this offset is in constant danger of becoming undone: trees might be illegally removed from the site; farmers might cut and plant a clandestine field of plantains; a fire might break out; consumers might suspect that this offset is a “fraud.” Therefore, once a year, this same group gets together in order to reiterate this carbon erritory anew. Guided by GPS devices, they inspect the space’s physical boundaries; hey repair signs, re-cut trails, and take photographs of the site (figure 2). GPS devices, maps, signs, trails, and cameras: these artifacts of calculation, measure, and inscription join the human actors of scientists, bureaucrats, politicians, farmers, businessmen, and consumers in the ongoing and iterative process of maintaining this precarious object of exchange — the carbon offset commodity. Figure 2: Scenes from a carbon verification trip. Right: an NGO representative checks her GPS device before crossing a stream. Left: single file hiking along pre-determined trails was the primary formation during the trip. Photos by author.

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