‘Fixing’ the climate crisis: capital, states, and carbon offsetting in India

Abstract

The paper analyzes dynamics of accumulation and displacement in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It combines the theoretical work of David Harvey and James O’Connor with a case study of the Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited HFC-23 destruction project in Gujarat, India. The framework is used to connect the factors driving opportunities for capital accumulation in the CDM market with the causes of social and ecological dislocation at the local project level. We argue that the CDM is a spatial fix to the ecological crisis of climate change which secures conditions of production for fossil fuel industries and promotes new sites of accumulation for other companies. The political–economic ‘fix’ is dependent on ‘fixing’ a global sociospatial divide between developed and developing countries down to ‘fixed’ projects at the local level. This spatial fix facilitates a displacement of the costs of responding to the climate crisis from North to South.