The hidden costs of carbon commodification : emissions trading, political legitimacy and procedural justice

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC, and the Copenhagen Accord ‘noted’ by the UNFCCC, have all been criticised on grounds of environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency, and distributive justice. The policy responses systematised by these climate change agreements, in particular the emissions trading mechanisms introduced by the Kyoto Protocol and European Union, have also attracted criticism on similar grounds.

A neglected line of research, however, has been how global climate governance institutions and policies fare in terms of normative ideals the significance of which is not captured without remainder by commonly held objectives of improving environmental quality, at least economic cost, and with minimal worsening of existing global inequalities. Two such ‘non-distributive’ ideals are those of political legitimacy and procedural justice.