Voluntary Carbon Markets and Net Zero in Scotland: A Property and Place Perspective

Citation

Stewart C (2025) Voluntary Carbon Markets and Net Zero in Scotland: A Property and Place Perspective. Carbon & Climate Law Review, 19 (1), pp. 3-14. https://doi.org/10.21552/cclr/2025/1/4

Abstract
In 2019, the Scottish Government set a legally binding target of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. Land use plays an important part in the achievement of this target, being both a cause of climate change and a means of climate change mitigation. Yet, land use change measures in the context of climate and biodiversity are often analysed within discrete areas such as environmental and planning law. This article argues that they must be considered through a property lens if we are to understand and tackle the root causes of unsustainable land use. Voluntary Carbon Markets (VCMs) are driving land use change in Scotland, impacting on wider environmental and social outcomes. Property rights, specifically ownership, are thus implicated in VCMs. However, debates on the exercise of property rights tend to focus on the holder of the right. What happens instead if consideration turns to the impacts of the exercise of property rights on place? In other words, what are the biophysical and social consequences of the exercise of property rights? Through this analysis, informed by literature from critical legal geography and progressive property theory, this article contends that VCMs are unlikely to contribute meaningfully to Scotland’s net zero target because they further embed a placeless model of property which has taken root in Scotland’s property paradigm over centuries – the ‘ownership model’.

Journal
Carbon & Climate Law Review: Volume 19, Issue 1