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

该项目探讨了在气候政治和金融交叉领域应对风险和不确定未来的社会策略。该项目采用理论视角，借鉴定性社会研究方法，研究民间社会、政治和金融框架中的利益相关者如何应对金融部门向低碳经济转型的影响。从经验上看，该项目侧重于围绕“碳泡沫”和“搁浅资产”问题的争议，即生态和经济上有争议的问题，即一致实施国际气候目标可能导致化石资本主义金融资产（特别是燃料储备和能源基础设施）的大规模贬值。这一议题最初是由非政府组织提出讨论的，同时也引起了金融部门主要参与者以及金融监管机构的注意，他们提出了如何管理碳密集型资产贬值风险的问题，即所谓的转型风险。通过研究金融公众的问题化过程以及转型风险的治理，该项目揭示了两个关键领域，在这些领域，异质行动者试图将认知经济预期与全球气候目标结合起来。首先，该项目考察了将“碳泡沫”和“搁浅资产”划分为金融问题空间的认知和规范框架。该项目不仅将金融作为一个经济行动领域，而且将其作为一个政治行动领域，重点关注公众参与的新形式，从战略上瞄准金融市场的风险敏感性，以执行气候保护议程。在第二步中，项目分析了控制转型风险的模式。它侧重于监管举措，旨在通过加强企业报告实践中与气候相关的财务信息，使转型风险可衡量，从而可管理。因此，该项目寻求确定一种新的金融风险治理形式，试图通过解决金融市场的信息基础设施来改变经济预期。该项目旨在强调在金融领域实施气候保护议程的机会、限制和矛盾。特别是，它审查了将气候相关指标转化为金融信息是否有损害环境问题的风险。以气候保护为目的将金融市场政治化，如果导致气候政治金融化，可能会适得其反。该项目将实证分析与理论反思相结合，通过批判性地阐明金融风险与气候风险之间的纠缠，为当代社会的分析做出了重大贡献，而学者们普遍认为金融风险与气候风险之间的纠缠是“世界风险社会”的关键要素（Beck）。

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).