The epistemology of the aff is guaranteed to fail

Thus far, capitalism has shown a capacity to recover from the economic and environmental crises it has produced. This resilience may well be the reason why some people have come to believe that effective solutions for combatting climate change can only come through a process of capitalist reform, such as the introduction of new market mechanisms. We argue, however, that, even if a decarbonized capitalist ‘green economy’ were possible, such an economy would be characterized by uneven growth and disparities of income, and by the unequal distribution of economic, social and environmental risks that global markets produce. We put forward this argument by reviewing four key Marxist approaches, provided by Foster (1999, 2000, 2002), Moore (2010, 2011a, 2011b), Harvey (2003, 2006) and Marini (1977, 2005). We employ the analytical tools of these writers in order to assess, 1) to what extent carbon markets form part of broader trends in the historical development of capitalism, 2) how carbon markets function within the contemporary regime of capitalist accumulation, 3) what effects they have on ecological transformations around the world, and 4) what role countries and elites in the Global South are playing in the contemporary emergence of what Newell & Paterson (2010) call ‘climate capitalism’.