Cultures of Carbon and the Logic of Care: The Possibilities for Carbon Enrichment and Its Cultural Signature

Abstract

Climate change and the associated need to decarbonize pose not just risks to cultures but potential opportunities for cultural experimentation, renewal, and economic dynamism. An Australian case of carbon mitigation through carbon farming represents a discursive tool with which indigenous groups are seeking to leverage a very distinct conceptualization of payment for ecosystem services, one that values the labor and reciprocal relationships and logic of care required to abate or sequester carbon. Inscribed with an inalienable ancestral cultural signature, the indigenous produced carbon offsets being promoted by indigenous carbon market participants represent more than a mere carbon reduction; they initiate processes of potentially enduring exchange and engagement. This carbon signature works to enrich carbon as well as embed peoples' relations with it, with each other, and with the places from which the offset is generated. Contributing to emergent research into cultures of carbon, it is our conjecture that valorizing these relations in ethical exchanges is a potentially productive way of financing alternative approaches to environmental stewardship. The insights signal potential prospects for other marginalized cultures to appropriate, repurpose, and benefit from mainstream decarbonization strategies and participate in climate governance.

气候变迁以及脱碳的相关需求，不仅对文化带来风险，更对文化实验、再生与经济活力带来潜在机会。澳大利亚透过碳农业进行减碳的案例，提供了一个论述工具，原住民团体可藉此寻求制衡非常特殊的生态系统服务付费之概念化，而该论述重视减少或隔离碳所需的劳动与互惠关係及照护逻辑。原住民铭记不可分割的祖先文化标志，生产由原住民碳市场参与者所提倡的碳补偿；而碳补偿不仅只是减碳，他们更推动具有持续交换与参与潜力的过程。此一碳标志工作丰富了碳，并将人们的关係置入其中、置入相互关係，以及将人们的关係置入生产补偿之地。我们对于碳文化的新兴研究作出贡献，并推测稳定这些道德交换中的关係，是资助另类环境管理方法的具生产潜力之方式。这些洞见为其他边陲文化指引了挪用主流脱碳策略、再赋予其目的并从中获益，且同时参与气候治理的潜在愿景。

El cambio climático y la necesidad concurrente de descarbonizar no solo plantea riesgos a las culturas sino oportunidades potenciales de experimentación cultural, renovación y dinamismo económico. Un caso australiano de mitigación del carbono a través de una agricultura de carbono es la representación de una herramienta discursiva con la que grupos indígenas buscan apalancar una conceptualización distintiva del pago por servicios ecosistémicos, la que valora el trabajo y relaciones recíprocas y la lógica del cuidado requeridos para reducir o confiscar carbono. Inscritos en una inalienable firma cultural ancestral, las compensaciones por carbono producido por los indígenas, que están siendo promovidas por participantes indígenas en el mercado del carbono, representan algo más que la mera reducción del carbono; ellas inician procesos de intercambio y compromiso potencialmente duraderos. Esta firma del carbono trabaja para enriquecer el carbono lo mismo que para integrar así las relaciones de la gente, entre ellos mismos y con los lugares en donde la compensación es generada. Contribuyendo a la emergente investigación en culturas del carbono, conjeturamos que valorizar estas relaciones en intercambios éticos es una manera potencialmente productiva de financiar enfoques alternativos para la administración ambiental. Las perspicacias señalan prospectos potenciales para que otras culturas marginales puedan apropiarse, redireccionar y beneficiarse de la corriente principal de las estrategias de descarbonización, y participar en la gobernanza del clima.

Key Words:

• carbon offsets
• climate governance
• ecosystem services
• indigenous peoples
• nature–society relations

关键词：:

• 碳补偿，气后治理，生态系统服务，原住民族，自然—社会关係。

Palabras clave:

• compensaciones del carbono
• gobernanza climática
• servicios ecosistémicos
• pueblos indígenas
• relaciones naturaleza–sociedad

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Jon Barnett of the University of Melbourne for encouraging us to write about the cultures of carbon. We are very grateful to the journal's editor and anonymous reviewers for engaging so deeply with the ideas in this article and for helping us to clarify and finesse our arguments.

Notes

1. Carbon is widely used in the literature to encompass a wide range of GHGs besides carbon dioxide and is standard nomenclature for the carbon trading market.

2. Each unit represents one tonne of carbon dioxide-equivalent abated.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sue Jackson

SUE JACKSON is an Associate Professor in the School of Environment at Griffith University, Queensland 4111, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]. She is also an Honorary Fellow, School of Geography, The University of Melbourne. Her research interests include environmental governance, indigenous resource rights, and participation in environmental management and planning.

Lisa Palmer

LISA PALMER is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography at The University of Melbourne, Melbourne 3053, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include socionatures and indigenous approaches to environmental and social governance.

Fergus McDonald

FERGUS MCDONALD conducted his master's research in the School of Geography at the University of Melbourne, Melbourne 3053, Australia, on indigenous carbon abatement activities in the Northern Territory. E-mail: [email protected]. His work and research interests are in equity of environmental initiatives and remote livelihoods.

Adam Bumpus

ADAM BUMPUS is a Senior Research Fellow in Environment and Innovation at the School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne 3053, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]. His work focuses on the business, finance, and policy pathways to a clean energy future, and how communications technologies can make development more effective and inclusive.