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The capitalist passive environmental revolution

Five decades ago, the environmental movement was radical, progressive and ecologically Clive Spash inspired, challenging both the productivist state and capitalist enterprise. Then, the movement was tamed: the environment became a tradable financial asset and the idea of About the author limits on the economy was transformed into ‘’ and ‘green growth’. Clive is an economist, According to the Production Gap Report, by 2030 global fossil fuel production levels will Professor of Public Policy exceed by 50% a 2°C global warming pathway, and by 120% a 1.5°C pathway (Stockholm and Governance at the Environment Institute et al., 2019). No matter – the prevalent claim has remained that Vienna University of ‘the system’ can be ‘adjusted’ to address social, ecological and economic crises without and Business, removing corporate or capitalist structures. In the face of crisis the reaction has been a Editor-in-Chief of complacency that aims to rebuild and make more extreme the role of financial and capital- Environmental Values, accumulating regimes in the pursuit of the mythical ‘growth economy’. Such co-opting and former President of the European Society for of revolutionary potential, through the top-down imposition of ‘solutions’ that maintain . existing power structures, is what Antonio Gramsci referred to as a passive revolution. If this His works cover climate is to be avoided, and environmentalists are to be relevant in helping achieve an ethical, change, just and equitable social–ecological transformation, then they will have to be clear and loss, air and specific about who they support, who they oppose and on what grounds. conservation. He advocates social–ecological eople who suffer environmental in- terms of greening and sustaining, with transformation and a justice – people of colour, indigenous metaphors of spaceship Earth, ecological paradigm shift in economic P communities, people who live footprints and economic doughnuts. thought (for more on top of toxic dumps, or next to Environmentalists speak the weak words information, see www. polluting factories, busy roads, noisy of apologetic conservative reformers clivespash.org). airports and toxic rivers – have long hoped who fear scaring people. For example, the Citation the environmental movement would do WWF, an organization formerly concerned Spash C (2020) The capitalist something. Some 40 or 50 years ago the with wildlife, now states “we love cities,” passive environmental movement was radical, progressive and supporting urban lifestyles and treating revolution. The Ecological ecologically inspired – indeed, being too nature as capital (Spash, 2015a). ENGOs Citizen 4: 63–71. radical and too progressive for both the turned away from protest and towards productivist State and capitalist enterprise, , creating their own Keywords had to be tamed and corporate identities with logos to match Climate change; ecological mainstreamed. After the 1987 ‘Bruntland and T-shirts to sell. In the neoliberal era economics; limits; Report’, later published as Our Common of consumerism, environmental messages societal change Future (World Commission on Environment had to be sold to people in friendly pack- and Development, 1991), the idea of limits on aging. Environmentalists should not mention the economy was converted to ‘sustainable being anti-capitalist, for , wanting development’ and ‘green growth’. stabilized, pollution stopped, Modern environmental NGOs (ENGOs) resources kept in the ground, but nice positive talk only indirectly, if at all, of the systemic things like saving furry animals such as problems behind environmental degrad- pandas. Harsh realities should be made soft. ation. They avoid discussing capitalism, Since the 1980s and the rise of neo- corporations, the military–industrial com- liberalism, ENGOs increasingly concluded plex and economic growth. The preferred that communicating environmental con- positive ‘framing’ of things is in general cerns required adopting the dominant

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form of power discourse in society – benefit analysis showed climate change was money. Ecologists adopted the language of a good investment with positive returns, economics, referring to ecosystems as goods a profitable macroeconomic enterprise, and services, nature as capital, pollution as and then added market-based emissions an ‘’ beyond the responsibility trading and new energy markets. Rather of economic agents, and getting the than asking why humanity should expect a prices right as ‘the solution’. In line with positive rate of return on climatic disaster mainstream economists, everything was prevention, the only question became: How to be weighed up in order to determine the large is the return and where should we most ‘efficient’ level at which to pollute invest first to win the competitive market others, both human and non-human, and game? the ‘optimal’ rate at which species should The idea of a ‘carbon’ Ecologists adopted “ become extinct. Selling the environment to system (ETS) – called ‘cap and trade’ in the the language of preserve it became the accepted credo. By USA – has been heavily promoted as the economics, referring the early 2000s this ‘new environmental efficient solution to GHG mitigation. This to ecosystems as pragmatism’ was ready to dominate policy system requires that a set of polluters within goods and services, on climate change, biodiversity and global a given jurisdiction must either control (Spash, 2009). their emissions directly or buy allowances nature as capital, held by other polluters. In 2005, in order pollution as an Human induced climate change is to meet commitments, the ‘externality’ beyond good for growth EU initiated the world’s largest ETS, with the responsibility of In 2006, Nicholas Stern, an ex-Chief annual trade around 70 billion Euros before Economist of the World Bank, and his the 2008 financial collapse and 50 billion economic agents, 22 colleagues, produced a report heralded Euros more recently, before the latest and getting the as the first ‘rational’ approach to human- crash. The scheme has proven susceptible prices right as ‘the induced climatic change (Stern et al., 2006). to price instability, speculators and solution’.” It predicted a 20% loss in GDP, the common profiteering, and large-scale fraud (Spash measure of a modern nation’s success at and Theine, 2018). Where free allowances expanding the wealth of its economy, and are given to polluters to get buy-in they can was widely quoted by environmentalists. make millions through trading. In general, Unusually for a government economic corporate power is a major force affecting report, it talked of ethics, distributional ETS operation and design (Spash, 2010a). inequity and catastrophic events, but the Despite its problems, marketing GHG bottom line was the monetary assessment emissions has extended internationally of optimal and economically efficient and also via trading offsets. action (Spash, 2007). Stern was honoured, Offsetting requires that someone (the becoming a professor and being appointed offset provider) performs an activity that to the British House of Lords. reduces GHGs in the atmosphere, for Key to Stern’s success was describing which they get a credit. They then sell the greenhouse gas (GHG) control as an credit to a polluter who adds GHGs to the opportunity for (rather than a constraint atmosphere. In theory the outcome is no on) economic growth. Financial organ- net addition, the meaning behind policies izations could make big money by trading called ‘net zero emissions’. GHG offsets, or government-issued allowances to pollute. credits, can be created through investing GHG traders, suppliers in a variety of projects: forestry and land and other entrepreneurs quick off the use, renewable energy, energy-efficiency, mark could profit. The headline hustlers fuel switching, GHG capture or destruction. immediately posted: ‘Tackling climate Market efficiency targets the cheapest change is the pro-growth strategy’. The options which means exploiting the fact environmental pragmatists joined the that the poor sell cheaply so they should chorus line. The environmental crisis was undertake GHG reduction allowing the rich as an investment opportunity. Stern’s cost– to go on polluting. The Kyoto Protocol’s

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Clean Development Mechanism empowers the first place. Their aim is to maintain a industrially developed nations to offset growing economy; their primary concern emission with projects (such as dams, waste is to protect financial capital, not people or incinerators, wind , commercial ecosystems. forestry and oil palm plantations) in In 2014, the Global Commission on the industrially developing nations. However, Economy and Climate published Better these projects can just as easily increase, Growth Better Climate: The new climate rather than reduce, net emissions. economy report, with Stern as lead economist Indeed, both ETS and offsets have been (Calderon et al., 2014). Unsurprisingly, the notoriously ineffective at controlling report concludes that all countries have emissions. The main contributions to the opportunity to build lasting economic actual global GHG emissions reductions growth while simultaneously reducing have been the collapse of the Soviet Union “the immense risks of climate change.” with the demise of industrial emissions Four years later they headlined “the “Actual greenhouse from Russia and Eastern Europe and the inclusive growth story,” and argued for a gas reductions have economic recession due to the 2007–2008 ‘green economy’ where government funds required significant financial crisis. The economic impacts of corporations, with US$90 trillion expected declines in economic the Covid-19 pandemic have similarly cut for energy and other transition works in emissions. That is, actual GHG reductions coming decades (Calderon et al., 2018). This, growth and shrinking have required significant declines in they claim, heralds a new era of economic of industrial economic growth and shrinking of growth – rapid technological innovation, production and industrial production and consumption, infrastructure investment, increased consumption, and are and are reversed as soon as economic resource productivity, jobs, economic growth is re-established. In sum, savings, improved competitiveness and reversed as soon as international climate policy has been a market opportunities. economic growth is failure. The was targeted by re-established.” Besides mandatory ETS and regulated these same interests and associated neo- offsets, there are voluntary offsets that are liberal ENGOs (Spash, 2016). Nat Keohane unregulated traded GHG credits issued by of the Environmental Defence Fund companies (e.g. airlines) and civil society bragged on its website how it had pushed groups (Spash, 2010a; Spash and Theine, in the corridors of Paris for “an opening for 2018). These encourage individuals to not markets.” An eighteen-country neoliberal worry about their personal, and especially lobby led by New Zealand had its negotiators consumer-related, emissions because they pushing ETS. This was hidden by negotiators can pay for them. This removes moral in the international doublespeak of the responsibility and crowds out voluntary Agreement. You will not find emissions actions (e.g. they fly more not less). In trading, markets, cap and trade or offsets 2019 purchases of voluntary offsets were mentioned, but rather “internationally booming, a growth in sales attributed to transferred mitigation outcomes” (clause the ‘Greta effect’ after climate activist 108 and Article 6). After getting ‘carbon’ Greta Thunberg (Laville, 2019). At the 2020 markets into the Agreement, the fight to annual meeting of the world’s business elite establish an international ETS became in Davos, Thunberg actually countered this, explicit and was central to the failed UN stating: “We’re not telling you to offset your 2019 Madrid negotiations. emissions by just paying someone else […] In the same year, over 3000 economists emissions have to stop […] forget about net endorsed a ‘carbon tax’, because they believe zero we need real zero” (Thunberg, 2020). substituting a price signal for cumbersome Both emissions trading and offset regulations will promote economic growth schemes distract from the need to change (www.econstatement.org). Some corpor- human behaviour, social institutions (i.e. ations also now prefer a carbon tax over conventions, norms, rules and regulations) an ETS. Why? Government officials can and infrastructure to avoid emissions in be lobbied to set taxes low and provide

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exemptions. The tax is stable unlike ETS capital approach,” and repeatedly discussed prices. Corporations can argue for tax the need to be “practical” (UN Economic revenues to be used to subsidize a ‘just Commission for Europe et al., 2008). Its transition’ – that is, paying them to move basic assumption is that everything can from fossil fuels to renewable energy be measured on a comparable basis and and related technologies. They also fear added together. Implicit in this approach being held liable for deliberate harm of is the ability to trade-off one thing for the innocent and believe accepting a tax another: social capital (the connectivity is the price for exemptions from future of people), (species, eco- damage claims and reparations. As with big systems), cultural capital (both tangible tobacco or asbestos producers before them, and intangible), manufactured capital the fossil fuel industry appears guilty of a (machinery, buildings) and human capital series of acts establishing their corporate (education). The claim that all values can be moral responsibility for knowingly creating measured on the same basis and equated – harm over a long time frame, while having made commensurable – is key to the whole the capacity to avoid that harm (Grasso capitalist approach to the environment. The claim that “ and Vladimirova, 2020). They are also In October 2010, the UN Environment all values can be culpable for denial of the truth amounting Programme Finance Initiative published measured on the to spreading lies in their own interest, and Demystifying Materiality: Hardwiring biodiv- same basis and self-enrichment by their harmful actions. ersity and ecosystems into finance, supported equated – made The top 100 corporate polluters produced by Rio Tinto, Industrial Development Corp- over 70% of global GHG emissions (1988– oration, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Uni Credit commensurable – is 2015) with just 25 producing 51% (Spash, Group, Credit Suisse, Citigroup, Barclays, key to the whole 2020). Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and similar capitalist approach to others. Rather than demonstrate that nature Biodiversity loss is a the environment.” has measurable value, the new message was financial treasure trove that values could be ‘captured’. How? In Potsdam, May 2007, the German Ideas like carbon emissions trading and Federal Government and the G8+5 created GHG offsets could be expanded by more the UN-backed project ‘The Economics innovative financial market devices (Spash, of Ecosystems and Biodiversity’. This 2009). In the US, for example, ‘endangered was led by Pavan Sukhdev, a Managing species credits’ provided companies Director in the Global Markets division at with tradable certificates to offset their Deutsche Bank, with the philosophy of ‘you negative impacts on threatened species cannot manage what you cannot measure’. and habitats. They had also established Referencing the Stern report, the project wetland banking, allowing companies proposed a range of mainstream economic or individuals undertaking development approaches including all-encompassing or to degrade or monetary valuation – reporting that the destroy wetland ecosystems by making solution to our problems was placing payments, called environmental credits. ecosystems and biodiversity within a set The concept of ‘bio-banking’ had been of ‘sustainability’ metrics to complement pioneered by New South Wales, Australia in the familiar metrics of GDP growth and 2006 allowing developers to buy credits – corporate profitability (The Economics of created by ‘enhancing’ other land (e.g. areas Ecosystems and Biodiversity, 2010). Rather previously degraded by development) – to than opposing this reduction of nature to offset negative impacts on biodiversity. The money, many ecologists and conservation basic idea of all such schemes is to offset biologists joined with orthodox economists harmful destructive acts in one place and to promote it. time by supposedly equivalent good acts In 2008 the joint international agency in another place and time. All too often the Working Group on Statistics for Sustainable good act is a future promise and the harm a Development, placed great emphasis on “the present actuality.

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There is big money in these schemes, with (Aronoff, 2019). Apparently strong calls to the market for wetland credits alone in the action. However, these statements remain US estimated as worth US$1.1–1.8 billion generalized complaints and unspecific already back in 2010. No more worrying as to mechanisms. The danger is that about absolute protection or annoying environmental criticism and calls for regulations – just opportunities to trade, systems change without substance and create new financial instruments and specifics are subject to manipulation and make money. This is not about biodiversity diversion from radical and revolutionary protection or conservation, but seeking reform. to remove regulation and restrictions for Corporations, pro-growth governments developers (Spash, 2015b). and bureaucrats, have already adopted This is not these calls for urgent action to advocate “ No more heroes anymore? a range of environmental ‘deals’, such as about biodiversity In 2019, calls for ‘systems change, not the European Commission ‘Green Deal’, protection or climate change’ gained ground due to the UN Environment Programme ‘New conservation, but (XR) and the school Deal for Nature’, and the UN Conference seeking to remove strikes of FridaysForFuture (FFF) fronted by on Trade and Development ‘Global Greta Thunberg. These new environmental ’. Ursula von der Leyen, regulation and movements return to the plain speaking European Commission President, stated restrictions for of the 1960s. They emphasize that there is that, “Supported by investments in green developers.” an imminent ecological crisis and ongoing technologies, sustainable solutions and mass species extinction, that human new businesses […] The European Green induced climate change is an ‘emergency’ Deal is our new growth strategy. It will and that therefore action is urgent. help us cut emissions while creating jobs” However, their agenda is disconnected (European Commission, 2019). Typical of and incomplete. As I have noted elsewhere all these ‘deals’ are claims of coordinating (Spash, 2012), restrictions are necessary and organizing stakeholders, having civil on both and the scale society and government work with – or of human activity, but this combined issue more accurately for – ‘industry’, with appears absent. Even more fundamentally, promises of economic growth, jobs and the new environmental activists have not climate stability. Similar ideas are touted yet substantively addressed the structure under the term ‘stakeholder capitalism’, of the economic system, its consumerism the theme of Davos 2020. In this ‘new’ era and dominant corporate institutions, of Green corporate capitalism the ENGO the political processes and politicians continues to play its passive role. that maintain it, nor how such a system of political economy can realistically be The corporate green strategy transformed (Spash, 2020). The corporations have a well-established Neoliberal political leaders and the World game plan to control potential revolutionary Economic Forum, commonly known as the force from the top down. They long ago Davos elite, have been hosting Thunberg developed a strategy to address ENGOs, and promoting her speeches. This raises which can be summarized as: isolate the the question as to what they expect to radicals, buy off the opportunists, cultivate achieve by doing so. She has called for a new the idealists and co-opt the pragmatists. political system without competition, new Public relations firms advised them not economics and new way of thinking that to oppose but ‘work with’ their opponents includes living within , and employ their language – divide and sharing resources and addressing inequity. conquer, in other words. ENGOs have In a Rolling Stone interview she stated been deliberately targeted by corporate corporations are to be held responsible for strategists, and in several cases they have knowingly perpetrating harm which she been captured at management level. Some regards as “a crime against humanity” US ENGOs have governing boards where

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60–70% of the members are current or the world’s five largest oil companies have former directors of major transnational spent US$1 billion on green rebranding. corporations (e.g. The Nature Conservancy, This has not stopped them simultaneously Conservation International, WWF-USA). working to undermine environmental Others, including the National Wildlife legislation and establish new oil supplies. Federation, and the Natural Indeed, soft policies are combined with Resources Defense Council, suffer from lobbying and sponsoring politicians, media corporate capture and conformity to the control, funding of denialism and anti- basic tenets of neoliberalism (Spash, 2017). environmental think tanks and personal The inroads into conservation by corporate attacks on scientists (Oreskes and Conway, interests are deep (Adams, 2017). 2010; Spash 2010b, 2014, 2018; Hoggett and Foremost amongst the neoliberal ENGOs Randall, 2018). The even harder line seeks has been The Nature Conservancy, with cooperation of government security forces revenues of US$1.3 billion. Its President to directly target environmental protestors and CEO until 2019 was Mark Tercek, and activists who are subject to police previously a managing director at Goldman harassment and brutality, surveillance, Sachs. Tercek worked with former Nature infiltration, repression and branding as Conservancy Vice President Peter Kareiva ‘terrorists’. In some countries, activists are to promote capitalism as ‘natural’ and even subject to assassination, especially berated conservation biologists for not where they oppose economic growth and The contradictions “ allying with corporations. Kareiva has ‘development’. and cynicism of been key to Stanford University’s flagship The contradictions and cynicism of capitalists and ‘natural capital’ project. In a revival of capitalists and financiers is rife, and evident financiers is rife, social Darwinism, Kareiva and Marvier in the US$2.66 trillion the world’s largest (2012) have even claimed corporations are investment banks have funnelled into fossil and evident in the a keystone species! fuels since the Paris agreement (Greenfield US$2.66 trillion That the WWF was also captured by and Makortoff, 2020). The latest rhetoric the world’s largest corporate capitalism became evident when is the oxymoron of ‘sustainable finance’ investment banks Pavan Sukdev became its President in 2017. for capitalism and the growth economy. have funnelled into In cooperation with the UN Environment Financialization even extends to the sale Programme Finance Initiative, the WWF of catastrophe bonds. Insurers profit from fossil fuels since the recently launched ‘The Net Zero Asset catastrophes by increasing premiums Paris agreement.” Alliance’ to claim that GHGs can be offset annually, spreading risk and pushing costs and corporations become carbon neutral onto government, the ultimate insurer and environmentally responsible. This of last resort. For ‘sustainable financiers’, boast was led by asset owners representing more harm means making more money. more than US$2 trillion, in a network As Hache (2020: 52) notes, “climate change controlling US$4 trillion (UN Environment will enable insurers to increase their future Programme Finance Initiative, 2020). Join- profits through increases in the damages ing Sukdev in fronting the ‘Alliance’ is covered.” Christiana Figueres, former Executive A prevalent claim is that ‘the system’ can Secretary of the UN Framework Convention be ‘adjusted’ to address social, ecological on Climate Change. She is now part of and economic crises without removing the B-Team, run by corporate billionaire corporate or capitalist structures, let Richard Branson of Virgin Group, an alone the global imperialism they have organization including Yolanda Kakabadse, created under the guise of ‘free trade’ former President of the WWF. and unregulated financialization. Environ- Corporations and their billionaire owners mental destruction can be made into are marketing the growth economy as a tradable financial asset. In a strange, green, circular, inclusive, sustainable and twisted logic, the dominance of humanity smart. The think tank InfluenceMap (2019) and our destruction of the environment has reported that since the Paris Agreement via technology and industrialization is

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changed from a negative to a positive. The ethically or politically neutral position capital-accumulating growth economy is here. If a researcher finds that some no longer the cause of social–ecological institution causes false beliefs then their crises but their solution! finding is to criticize that institution and initiate its change or subversion. Social– Social–ecological ecological transformation sets the ecological transformation of economies citizen against institutions making false Ecological activists must ask and answer the claims for emission trading, offsetting, following question: Under what conditions can monetary valuation, price-making markets, radically alternative social–ecological economies decoupling, trickle down, circular econ- be actualized? This requires understanding omies and sustainable inclusive green how current social and economic structures growth. The prospect seems daunting. are maintained and reproduced – not just However, as Bob Brown, former Australian physically but also mentally. Imaginaries of Green Party senator, says: “Don’t get the consumer society, equating economic depressed, get active!” Political activism growth to development and progress, is part of responding ethically to false have been forged in the minds of billions claims. This does not necessitate joining a while almost all political leaders accept political party. Actions include empowering the orthodox economists’ mantra that communication (art, education, media, ‘growth is good, and more is better’. Ideas self-expression), organizing solidarity “Replacing the reinforcing the economic structure include with the oppressed, protecting the innocent dominant idea defining work as waged labour, success from harm (both human and non-human), of ‘the economy’ as financial wealth, value as money, and making silent voices heard (e.g. future means recognizing freedom as market choice and ethics generations, children, non-humans). Social as hedonism. Ideas of social solidarity solidarity and political acts can take many the potential for and community are undermined by a forms, extending from direct action and different economies, political philosophy of individualism and civil disobedience, to participation in understood as limiting ethical responsibility to personal social movements and civil protest, to social provisioning preferences expressed in the market place. speaking freely and communicating with Organizations produce social institutions others in daily life, to leading by example systems, embedded that normalize these messages – reducing through daily practices. Social–ecological in and constituted by the potential for alternative systems to be transformation requires simultaneously different institutions imagined, let alone actualized. deactivating the causal mechanisms and structures. The science upon which the environ- supporting the current system and ” mental movement is based requires activating those allowing different systems opposition to the dominant imaginary to be actualized. and its promoters (e.g. bankers, financiers, There is no single ‘solution’ and certainly speculators, profiteers, billionaires, the not a technical one. Replacing the dominant Davos elite, multi-national corporations, idea of ‘the economy’ means recognizing the international trade organizations). If the potential for different economies, understood science is correct – exponential economic as social provisioning systems, embedded in growth is unsustainable, dilution is not and constituted by different institutions and the solution to pollution, global warming structures. Social–ecological transformation is human induced – then those who have aims for a future with a different set of values an opposite explanation must be wrong. giving different meaning to human–human, For example, to propound truth about human–nature and nature–nature relations. human-induced climate change is to Breaking free from existing structures means undermine the institutions of fossil fuel reimagining what constitutes a meaningful capitalism – something climate scientists and worthwhile life. Exploring forms of have been slow and unwilling to recognize economies involving sharing, cooperation, or act upon. In contrast to the modernist caring and life without money has long been dogma of value-free science, there is no part of the aims and practices of alternative

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forms of social organization (e.g. eco-social Greenfield P and Makortoff K (2020) Study: Global enterprises, communes, squats, protest banks ‘failing miserably’ on climate crisis by funneling camps, transition towns and eco-villages). trillions into fossil fuels. The Guardian, 18 March. Available at https://is.gd/iW4qLQ (accessed July 2020). Systemic transformation means just that. Modern environmentalists use natural Hache F (2020) 50 Shades of Green Part III: Sustainable finance 2.0. The securitization of climate and biodiversity science to criticize government inaction, policies. Green Finance Obser vator y, Brussels, Belgium. but then appeal to the good will of Hoggett P and Randall R (2018) Engaging with climate systemically captured politicians in a world change: Comparing the cultures of science and of corporate capitalism they fail to address. activism. Environmental Values 27: 223–43. Society exists on the basis of human agents InfluenceMap (2019) Big Oil’s real agenda on climate acting, reproducing and transforming change. Available at https://is.gd/3c3d0j (accessed social structures. Environmentalists need January 2020).

to be aware of the political economy Kareiva P and Marvier M (2012) What is conservation within which they are operating, the role science? BioScience 62: 962–9.

of different actors e.g.( corporations, elites, Laville S (2019) ‘Greta Thunberg effect’ driving growth in Society exists on “ financiers) and ideas e.g. ( growthmania, carbon offsetting. The Guardian, 8 November. Available the basis of human productivism, market mechanisms). If the at https://is.gd/yYDMwB (accessed July 2020). agents acting, new environmentalists are to reverse the Oreskes N and Conway E (2010) Merchants of Doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from reproducing and losses and avoid another passive capitalist revolution in response to the latest crisis, tobacco smoke to global warming. Bloomsbury Press, transforming social New York, New York, USA. they will need to recognize with whom structures.” their knowledge makes them politically Spash CL (2007) The economics of climate change impacts à la Stern: Novel and nuanced or rhetorically allied and opposed. They might then begin restricted? Ecological Economics 63: 706–13. to clearly specify detailed proposals aimed Spash CL (2009) The new environmental pragmatists, at defeating the opposition, and create pluralism and sustainability. Environmental Values 18: the necessary structural change in the 253–6. dominant economic systems to achieve a Spash CL (2010a) The brave new world of carbon social–ecological transformation for the trading. New Political Economy 15: 169–95. better. n Spash CL (2010b) Censoring science in research officially. Environmental Values 19: 141–6. References Spash CL (2012) New foundations for ecological Adams B (2017) Sleeping with the enemy? Biodiversity economics. Ecological Economics 77: 36–47. conservation, corporations and the green economy. Journal of Political Ecology 24: 243–57. Spash CL (2014) The politics of researching carbon trading in Australia. In: Stephan B and Lane R, eds. Aronoff K (2019) Don’t be fooled by fossil fuel companies’ The Politics of Carbon Markets. Routledge, London, UK: green exterior. Rolling Stone, 20 June. Available at 191–211. https://is.gd/3A2CHB (accessed July 2020). Spash CL (2015a) The dying planet index: Life, death Calderon F, Oppenheim J and Stern N (2014) Better and man’s domination of Nature. Environmental Growth Better Climate: The new climate economy report; Values 24: 1–7. the synthesis report. The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, Washington, DC, USA. Spash CL (2015b) Bulldozing biodiversity: The economics of offsets and trading-in Nature. Calderon F, Oppenheim J and Stern N (2018) Unlocking the Biological Conservation 192: 541–51. Inclusive Growth Story of the 21st Century: Accelerating climate action in urgent times. The Global Commission Spash CL (2016) This changes nothing: The Paris on the Economy and Climate, Washington, DC, USA. Agreement to ignore reality. Globalizations 13: 928– 33. Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (2010) The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Mainstreaming Spash CL (2017) Environmentalism and democracy in the economics of nature: A synthesis of the approach. UN the age of nationalism and corporate capitalism. Environment Programme, Bonn, Germany. Environmental Values 26: 403–12.

European Commission (2019) A European Green Deal. Spash CL (2018) Facing the truth or living a lie: Available at https://is.gd/Vwa6rs (accessed July 2020). Conformity, radicalism and activism. Environmental Values 27: 215–22. Grasso M and Vladimirova K (2020) A moral analysis of carbon majors’ role in climate change. Environmental Spash CL (2020) The revolution will not be corporatised! Values 29: 175–95. Environmental Values 29: 121–30.

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Spash CL and Theine H (2018) Voluntary individual UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (2010) carbon trading: Friend or foe? In: Lewis A, ed. Handbook Demystifying Materiality: Hardwiring biodiversity and of Psychology and Economic Behaviour. Cambridge ecosystem services into finance. UN Environment University Press, Cambridge, UK: 595–624. Programme, Geneva, Switzerland.

Stern NH, Peters S, Bakhshi V et al. (2006) Stern Review UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (2020) on the Economics of Climate Change. UK Government The Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance. UN Environment Economic Service, London, UK. Programme, Geneva, Switzerland. Stockholm Environment Institute, International Institute UN Economic Commission for Europe, Organisation for Sustainable Development, Overseas Development for Economic Cooperation and Development and Institute et al. (2019) The Production Gap: The discrepancy Eurostat (2008) Report on Measuring Sustainable between countries’ planned fossil fuel production and Development: Statistics for sustainable development, global production levels consistent with limiting warming commonalities between current practice and theory. UN to 1.5°C or 2°C. Stockholm Environment Institute, Economic and Social Council, New York, NY, USA. Stockholm, Sweden. World Commission on Environment and Development Thunberg G (2020) Davos Forum speech transcript, (1991) Our Common Future. Oxford University Press, 21 January. Available at https://is.gd/L9sDZp Oxford, UK. (accessed July 2020).

Series (selected images) by Ben Sanderson

About the artworks: Ben made these paintings in response to spending time with the subtropical plants of Trebah Garden in Cornwall, UK. They reflect on the space between the felt sentience of plants and conversations in the garden with people including gardeners, plant specialists and a psychiatrist. The paintings are presented with specific dates, marking calendrical and diaristic time in relation to the non-linear cyclical time of the garden. The longer he has spent in the garden, the more Ben has been attracted to the wild spaces around the edge inhabited by rogue, uninvited species.

Higher-resolution versions: https://is.gd/ecoartwork

Monotype and embossing on paper (6 April 2020; 36 x 46 cm)