Gauri Nagpal

This project examines how carbon markets are reshaping urban fiscal politics in the Global South. As cities confront intertwined crises of climate change and rising debt, alongside shrinking development aid and limited access to concessional finance, many turn to voluntary carbon markets as a revenue source. Following consultants, or “carbon brokers” who convert emissions into tradable credits, the research traces how urban agents operationalize market mechanisms as deliberate and strategic instruments. It examines how cities emerge as carbon traders – transforming emissions into fiscal assets that shape which infrastructures are built and which cities are rendered bankable. Operating in the penumbra of formal rules, these actors rely on informal brokerage and political mediation, foregrounding informality as constitutive of rather than peripheral to climate finance. Drawing on ethnography, document analysis, and interviews in India and South Africa, it shows how these markets are assembled through technical practices that produce new forms of informal politics. The project produces a podcast and an animated short to broaden access to debates on urban carbon finance.