2.2 Green Extractivism and Financialization in Forest Carbon Offsetting
The integration of forest-rich peripheral regions into regulated carbon markets reveals a fundamental tension between neoclassical market efficiency and socio-spatial equity. Under standard emissions trading systems, the primary policy objective is cost-effective aggregate mitigation, a process that inherently abstracts from the localized distributional consequences across diverse economic actors [4]. When applied to the Brazilian Amazon through instruments such as the Brazilian Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading System (SBCE), carbon pricing mechanisms interact with deep-seated historical inequalities in territorial control and access to capital [2]. Consequently, carbon offset transactions and corporate bioeconomy funding mechanisms frequently operate under what structuralist frameworks define as green extractivism [3]. In this operational model, external corporate and financial intermediaries capture the predominant share of monetary returns generated by environmental assets, while local communities and traditional forest populations bear the governance burdens, land-use restrictions, and transaction costs [3]. Furthermore, because market regimes equalize marginal abatement costs without correcting for regional welfare disparities, the resulting financial flows reinforce external control rather than enabling regional structural transformation [3, 4]. Without robust institutional arrangements designed to retain value locally, market-driven climate finance risks converting biodiversity and carbon conservation into speculative assets that exacerbate territorial vulnerability rather than fostering inclusive regional development [2, 3].