Crise climática, mecanismos de mercado e a financeirização da natureza: uma análise da degradação socioambiental regulamentada pela farsa ideológica do mercado de carbono

Abstract

The present thesis is the result of the investigation process and the analytical effort to apprehend the historical determinations of the socioenvironmental issue, having as a theoretical reference, Marxism, now, specifically of the climate crisis. Our research sought to analyze the climate crisis, which is aggravated at the present time and poses itself as a central and urgent issue. However, the ways out of its confrontation have occurred through the reinforcement of the structural dynamics that shape and intensify it, the capitalist social relations. This is because, the current ways of coping with the climate crisis have been operated through the mediation of the concepts and mechanisms of the capitalist market. In its ideological intention of making capitalism “humanized” and “environmentally sustainable”, the ways of coping were inserted by the market in the logic of the world of finance and profit, with the emergence of the carbon market, which is part of the strategies to contain the crisis climate change, built under the Kyoto Protocol. The idea that it is possible to reduce the emission of polluting gases into the atmosphere, without reducing the pace of destructive capital production, is ideologically disseminated. Thus, the main concern that led this study and was configured as the main assumption, is that nature goes through an intense process of financialization, which has been materializing as it profits from the way out of the socio-environmental crisis. And, the carbon market, while the strategy that serves the current dynamics of capitalism, has proved to be profitable. In this sense, we analyze the structural link of the climate crisis and the historical limits to reach “sustainability” in the capitalist alternative, specifically, as a carbon market. Our research has as general objective to analyze the process of financialization of nature through the mediation of the carbon emissions market, in particular in Brazil. Our theoretical argument was built on the basis of the materialist-historical method, its categories and concepts, seeking support for the critical reading of the contemporary authors of this theoretical current, as well as in the classic texts. Our research is of a qualitative, documentary and bibliographic nature. For documentary analysis, we use content analysis, a technique that allows us to identify the content implicit in the documents, the ideology, socio-political perspectives and the underlying interests, the most relevant data, among other aspects. The temporal backing of the analyzed documents is from the 1970s to 2020. Publications from international organizations were analyzed; documents that are legal and normative regulatory frameworks; reports and various productions that presented important data on greenhouse gas emissions and the dynamics of the carbon market; diverse data and research that revealed the profit in Brazil from the carbon market and that indicated the relationship between banks and the State. Among our general conclusions, we highlight that the carbon market has asserted itself under the financialization of nature, that preservation of the environment and capitalism are antagonistic issues and that the climate crisis points to the need for structural, revolutionary solutions. The moment requires the articulation of political forces to build an anti-capitalist alternative.