Since the intergovernmental agreements for the construction of the huge EU pipeline were signed in 2013, the government of Azerbaijan has felt politically covered to arrest every non-embedded voice in the country, to close every independent media and every international organization in the attempt to cut connections between civil society in the country with the rest of the world.

We now posses tools that are so powerful they enable us to create, recreate, resurrect and redesign life forms that evolved on earth over millions of years. Or do they? Perhaps what they really enable us to do is mess things up royally.

We need to think beyond Paris and to stand in active solidarity with those who are at the frontlines of fighting the climate and environmental criminals. We need to hear what they have been saying for a long time and in different ways. Building radical solidarity with social movements and communities in resistance may be a way forward.

Regardless of the reality of carbon trading contradictions, if policy continues to favour corporate strategies, an even greater speculative bubble in carbon finance can be anticipated in the next few years.

The green economy does not present a contradiction to the continuity of the current extractive and energy intensive economy; the “green” mechanisms are designed to create value and to be complementary and interdependent on the current economy.