In case anyone thought the whole accounting thing was a bit off – check out Deutsche Bank’s Carbon Counter. Their little slogan? “Know the Number.”
Bigger news might be the article in Science this week (thanks to Caroline for telling me about it) in which Searchinger et al detail “Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error” in the Kyoto Protocol, namely the failure to account for biomass emissions, for instance from deforestation, biofuels or land use change. Of course other accounting protocols, especially those related to REDD offsets for new carbon markets, do pay attention to these things – albeit across a heterogeneous procedural landscape. This is part and parcel of why carbon investors like Deutsche Bank will have a field day exploiting the intricate topographies of these investment-cum-emissions terrain. (Think derivatives.)
Personally I’m more interested in the rights scenarios implied in this landscape. But there’s no argument that a strong global agreement with any carbon trading provision will prove incredibly important to financial markets at least for the near-term.
Accounting for Atmosphere 
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October 30, 2009 at 12:58
Caroline McLoughlin
Re Carbon Counter: Nice. Because proper subjects of quantification must imbibe these products of expert knowledge (numbers). There is of course a notable difference in terms of the realm of massification/individuation vs numbers like credit scores and the kinds of numbers athletes make about themselves. In the latter cases, one knows and acts on these numbers as a reflection of personal merit in comparison with others. In this case, the question is less of individuating a faceless mass through a numerical sorting process but rather of quantifying a collective problem that can be resolved, implicitly, through a multitude of small acts (or so it is believed). Margins again, and also the problem of making climate change a problem of personal habit, I imagine. Nevertheless, an implicit call to know the number and then act on it.
It seems most similar to things like the National Debt Clock, and other such indices. The comparison to the Dow, which I noticed you write about below, is uncomfortably market-y, from my perspective,but I don’t take that to be your comparison.
October 30, 2009 at 13:11
jeromewhitington
So I just got off a chat with my friend Laura – I told her I would be going to Copenhagen and she asks right off the bat – are you buying carbon offsets for your flight!? So I think the link with individuation is very much in the mix, especially for an environmentally-inclined public. This is the quantified version (approximately) of e.g. people griping about Al Gore driving his SUV in the the footage for An Inconvenient Truth. One is morally disqualified for speaking in support of climate action if one’s own footprint is too big.
Personally I think for investors the carbon ticker has a totally different valence. If a ton of carbon has a price, then the ticker equals market volume – and the individuation question is really – how can I get a piece of that?
The Dow-like index I posted on last week is actually really interesting. I wasn’t able to comment on it at the time, but I’d very much like to watch how it worked if someone decided to do it.