Territorialisation of Carbon Governance (ToCG) is a concept used in political geography or environmental policy which is considered to be a new logic of environmental governance. This method creates carbon-relevant citizens who become enrolled in the process of governing the climate. The territorialisation of carbon governance transforms climate change from a global to local issue. It embodies political practices that serve to connect the causes and consequences of global climate change to local communities. The commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) has been a key component of sustainability within governance since the early 1990s. The ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability is an international association of local governments which brings together 1200 cities, towns and the associated 70 countries in their commitment to sustainable development. Further responses that seek to address these issues, include international body the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Rio Earth Summit and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These organisations strive to tackle anthropogenic forces which are increasing risks of global warming. Under the territorialisation of carbon, climate and global flows of carbon are regarded as ‘national sinks’. This is a means by which the carbon cycle can be managed and territorialised through being assigned to a physical geographical space instead of being thought of as a global phenomenon. The act of territorialisation oversees the combining of material natures and state institutions into one system through the creation of carbon territories. This approach can allow individual states and governments to control and monitor their carbon emissions in order to improve their efforts in carbon governance. Carbon governance can be interpreted as the institutional arrangements under which greenhouse gas emissions are addressed and mitigated. This is achieved through regulating and controlling carbon activities. Measures and protocols exist in an attempt to address the issues surrounding greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon governance is addressed via governmental decisions made through leadership and management which attempt to improve and resolve problems related to climate change.
Background and history ToCG finds its origin in the problem of global climate change. Climate change is often referred to as a global ‘commons’ problem whereby individuals are unlikely to take responsibility for the global accumulation of greenhouse gases. The atmosphere is shared by everybody resulting in the impacts of climate change and emissions being felt everywhere irrelevant of their origin. The implications of this problem are that to slow down global warming, ‘top-down’ international treaties must be signed. This idea can be related to the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ since the world contains multiple nation-states all acting with self-interest yet sharing one resource. The shared resource being exploited in this example can be represented by the atmosphere and the subsequent increase in global temperature is the result. In an attempt to combat and tackle these issues protocols and measures have been deployed. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement which sets binding targets in reducing GHG emissions. This treaty demonstrates a global approach to carbon governance. While this is legally binding to participating nation states it is due to expire in 2012. However the United States, the world's most historical emitter of GHG emissions, pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol. The Copenhagen Accord, which will come into effect in 2012 after the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol, was unsuccessful in creating a legally binding framework of global emissions reduction. These problems demonstrate how global approaches and agreements between nation states can demonstrate failure. The territorialisation of carbon governance is a method which has arisen in an attempt to overcome this problem though framing global problems as local and is considered a “bottom-up approach” to making change. ‘Think globally, act locally’ is an idea which can be interpreted spatially and conceptually. Instead of approaching the problems from a global scale, local governments are asserting themselves as active institutions in the making of climate policy. In doing so they are taking responsibility for the accumulation of greenhouse gases within their area. This contradicts the global “commons” theory whereby individuals are unable to take on global issues. The territorialisation of carbon governance uses scale and space in order to establish carbon territories. These can be used to establish and identify connections between carbon emissions and a geographical area.
Role of scale and space The concept of territorialisation of carbon governance is a method which reverses how environmental policy regulates global climate from a top down to bottom up approach. This technique tackles issues on a local scale rather than taking a global approach. Territorialisation of carbon governance encompasses ideas of scale and space. Methods by which environmental issues are addressed operate at a number of different levels. These include local, regional, national and international. The scale at which territorialisation of carbon governance operates is local. The idea of ‘space’ can be used to link nature with a state in order to designate ‘carbon territories’. Territorialisation of nature uses “legible and bounded space” to define the regulation and administration of state policies related to the environment. With the support of modern technologies for controlling, modeling and measuring atmosphere-biosphere interactions, the ‘invisible’ process of climate change, in recent years, has been “moulded onto territorial ground”. Territoriality can be understood as a form of behavior that “binds, refines and controls space for some social end”. Within this, 'rule over space' can be defined as a particularly important form of contemporary political authority. It seeks to govern issues related to climate change. In this regard establishing boundaries can be used to “border” climate change between states. This allows individual states to set specific emission reduction targets and manage carbon sinks alongside their environmental policies.
Governance beyond the state
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