TY - JOUR
T1 - Imagining circular carbon
T2 - A mitigation (deterrence) strategy for the petrochemical industry
AU - Palm, Ellen
AU - Tilsted, Joachim Peter
AU - Vogl, Valentin
AU - Nikoleris, Alexandra
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
PY - 2024/1
Y1 - 2024/1
N2 - Petrochemical producers both rely upon and generate some of the most problematic substances in the current age of socioecological crisis: fossil fuels and plastics. With mounting calls to cap fossil fuel extraction as well as plastics production, the industry appears to be caught between a rock and a hard place. Nonetheless, betting on continuously increasing global plastic demand, petrochemical production is expanding significantly. This predicament raises the question of how the industry attempts to square increasing petrochemical production with the need to address environmental issues. In recent years, leading actors in and around the industry have promoted notions of carbon circularity as a desirable mitigation strategy. In this paper, we examine this strategy, using discourse analysis to uncover what we refer to as the imaginary of circular carbon. We highlight how the circular carbon imaginary risks delaying climate mitigation by rendering alternative mitigation pathways undesirable. It does so by reconciling increased production, carbon neutrality, and circular economy in a vision of a circular carbon economy, framing the climate crisis as an issue of carbon management. In the circular carbon economy, carbon dioxide, petrochemicals, and plastics all fit as mere flows of carbon. The circular carbon imaginary thereby helps future-proof the petrochemical industry in legitimizing its carbon-intensive practises essential to the fossil world order and the plastic crisis.
AB - Petrochemical producers both rely upon and generate some of the most problematic substances in the current age of socioecological crisis: fossil fuels and plastics. With mounting calls to cap fossil fuel extraction as well as plastics production, the industry appears to be caught between a rock and a hard place. Nonetheless, betting on continuously increasing global plastic demand, petrochemical production is expanding significantly. This predicament raises the question of how the industry attempts to square increasing petrochemical production with the need to address environmental issues. In recent years, leading actors in and around the industry have promoted notions of carbon circularity as a desirable mitigation strategy. In this paper, we examine this strategy, using discourse analysis to uncover what we refer to as the imaginary of circular carbon. We highlight how the circular carbon imaginary risks delaying climate mitigation by rendering alternative mitigation pathways undesirable. It does so by reconciling increased production, carbon neutrality, and circular economy in a vision of a circular carbon economy, framing the climate crisis as an issue of carbon management. In the circular carbon economy, carbon dioxide, petrochemicals, and plastics all fit as mere flows of carbon. The circular carbon imaginary thereby helps future-proof the petrochemical industry in legitimizing its carbon-intensive practises essential to the fossil world order and the plastic crisis.
KW - Carbon neutrality
KW - Chemical industry
KW - Circular carbon
KW - Imaginary
KW - Mitigation deterrence
KW - Plastics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85177235757&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.envsci.2023.103640
DO - 10.1016/j.envsci.2023.103640
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85177235757
SN - 1462-9011
VL - 151
JO - Environmental Science and Policy
JF - Environmental Science and Policy
M1 - 103640
ER -