“Carbon bubble” and “stranded assets”: Making and governing climate related transition risks

• Applicant: Dr. Andreas Folkers
• Subject Area: Sociological Theory
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 433336180

The project examines social strategies to cope with risks and uncertain futures at the intersection of climate politics and finance. Adopting a theoretically informed perspective that draws on methods of qualitative social research the project looks at the ways stakeholders from civil society, politics, and finance frame and cope with the effects of a transition towards a low-carbon economy in the financial sector. Empirically, the project focuses on controversies around the issues of “carbon bubble” and “stranded assets”, that is, the ecologically and economically controversial problem that a consistent implementation of international climate goals could contribute to a massive devaluation of the financial assets of fossil capitalism (especially fuel reserves and energy infrastructures). The topic, which was first brought up for discussion by non-governmental organizations, meanwhile has also caught the attention of key players in the financial sector as well as financial regulators raising the question of how to govern the risks of a devaluation of carbon-intensive assets, so-called transition risks. By looking at the problematization process in financial publics as well as the governance of transition risks, the project illuminates two crucial sites where heterogenous actors try to align cognitive economic expectations with global climate goals.In a first step, the project examines the cognitive and normative framings that have carved out “carbon bubble” and “stranded assets” as financial problem spaces. The project addresses finance not just as an economic but also as a political field of action and focusses on new forms of public engagement that strategically target the risk sensitivity of financial markets to enforce a climate protection agenda. In a second step, the project analyses modes of governing transition risks. It focusses on regulatory initiatives that seek to render transition risks measurable and therefore manageable by strengthening climate related financial information in corporate reporting practices. The project thus seeks to identify a new form of financial risk governance that attempts to modify economic expectations by addressing the informational infrastructure of financial markets. The project seeks to highlight the opportunities, limits and paradoxes of attempts to implement a climate protection agenda in finance. In particular, it examines whether translating climate related indicators into financial information runs the risk to compromise environmental concerns. Politicizing financial markets for climate protection purposes could potentially backfire if this contributes to a financialization of climate politics. Combining empirical analysis with theoretical reflection, the project substantially contributes to the analysis of contemporary societies by critically illuminating the entanglements between financial and climate risks, which scholars widely regard as key elements of the “world risk society" (Beck).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants