ABSTRACT

Carbon offsets were designed to be a universal good for a global market, tradable with any form of carbon emission anywhere in the world. This paper shows that emission rights, designed as perfect commodities, do not pass their envisioned markets all too easily. After multiple market failures, producers and traders needed to add something to their offsets that define their value by exceeding the mere storage of carbon in trees or soil: a story. In voluntary markets, stories create a close relation between the good, its context of origin as well as the customer's context. By doing so, they juggle carbon offset through complex entanglements of value creation, modes of exchange, measurement practices and market demand. Carbon credits do not only take on a very singular nature but carry many characteristics of gifts at the same time. This paper thus aims to follow carbon offsets in and between their economic forms: commodities, singularities and gifts. This will be done by closely looking at the role of stories and how formatting processes, as well as the formation of goods are created and reflected in them at the same time.

摘要

碳补偿被设计成对全球市场通用的商品，可与世界任何地方的任何形式的碳排放交易。本文表明，作为完美商品设计的排放权并不太容易通过其预期的市场。在经历了多次市场失灵之后，生产商和贸易商需要通过抵消仅仅在树木或土壤中碳的储存量，来增加抵消额来定义其价值的东西：一个故事。在自愿市场中，故事会在商品，其原产地以及客户的背景之间建立紧密的关系。通过这样做，他们通过复杂的价值创造，交易方式，测量方法和市场需求的纠缠来解决碳抵消问题。碳信用额不仅具有非常独特的性质，而且同时具有许多礼物的特征。因此，本文旨在追踪碳补偿在其经济形式（商品，特殊性和赠与）中及其之间的相互关系。这将通过仔细研究故事的作用以及格式化过程以及商品的形成方式并同时体现在故事中来完成。