Assetizing Carbon through the ETS: Fabricating Valueand Depoliticizing the European Climate Transition

Abstract

This thesis examines through which mechanisms the European Union Emissions Trading System allowances are transformed into financial assets. The EU ETS is often discussed as a market-oriented climate policy tool. However, this thesis argues that it is necessary to re-examine this system as a socio-technical system that turns allowances into assets. Applying theories of Science and Technology Studies, the thesis integrates assetization, market performativity, and post-politicization to analyse how carbon is enclosed, how value is extracted and redistributed, and how future scarcity is capitalized into present investment decisions. The methodology is based on a qualitative case study of current practice in the EU ETS. Thus, semi-structured interviews and a literature review were conducted using an abductive approach to research. It argues that carbon assetization is accompanied by post-politicization, and that the two processes reinforce each other. Indeed, as allowances become assets through enclosure, rent extraction, and capitalization, their governance is increasingly displaced into technical, financial, and expert arenas, thereby narrowing the space for democratic contestation and limiting contestation of assetization. By showing how legal, infrastructural, and calculative enclosure make EUAs governable and investable, the thesis also demonstrates that assetization is a layered socio-technical process that narrows the space for democratic contestation. The thesis contributes to the literature by linking assetization to post-politicization and showing how the EU ETS simultaneously produces carbon value and stabilizes its own depoliticized mode of governance.