ABSTRACT
The marketisation of climate policy has developed as a strategy for states to manage capitalism's climate contradiction. There is a great need to challenge the economic orthodoxy informing the state's response to climate crisis. Carbon pricing rescales climate regulation and creates new 'global' sites of contestation. Carbon pricing has worked against the prospect of a popular, fair and effective transition away from fossil fuels. In the wake of carbon market failure, there is an interregnum in the climate change debate in Australia. The institution of new carbon markets creates new arenas of conflict, for instance over the regressive impacts of carbon pricing on the national economy, polluter windfall profits, and the appropriation of carbon rents in the South. Environmental mobilisations beyond the carbon price debate, however, may open up alternative possibilities for progressive climate politics. A nascent energy justice agenda and alternative strategies for contesting the state's role in energy market transformations holds promise.
