Bribing the Mortals: The Illusion of Equity in Global Carbon Market

“Why do the mortals fear the storm?” Zeus asked, watching from Olympus. “We have given them gold to rebuild.” Below, the villages flooded anyway.

A country can contribute almost nothing to global warming and still be left paying the price for it. Nepal is at the centre of this paradox. While its contribution to global emissions is extremely small, the country faces increasingly severe climate threats, leaving vulnerable communities to  deal with consequences largely created by other countries. Can money ever make this arrangement fair? 

For decades, wealthy countries have benefitted from the economic growth brought by industrialisation, while their environmental costs have been felt far beyond their borders. Financial support remains important for countries such as Nepal. However, carbon credits, which let a country count emission cuts made elsewhere towards its own targets, risk becoming an escape route, a way to buy emission reductions without reforming the behaviour that triggered the crisis in the first place. 

Nepal’s position becomes clearer when the scale of its contribution is compared with the damage it faces. According to Carbon Brief, United States has alone contributed over 20% of accumulated atmospheric carbon dioxide, compared to Nepal’s “virtually negligible” share. Yet Nepal remains highly vulnerable to climate-related disasters because of its geography. Following devastating floods in 2026, the country wanted support through the UN Loss and Damage Fund, which was established to assist developing countries facing climate related destruction. Unlike forward looking carbon credits, this addresses harm already done. The request is not charity. It is compensation to rebuild infrastructure and drive greater climate resilience. If economic gains of fossil fuels and industrialisation were enjoyed unequally by the Global North, physical consequences cannot be forced on to struggling countries.

From Olympus, the storm seemed distant. From the villages below, it was anything but.

The need for international support is clearer when considering Nepal’s climate goals. According to The Rising Nepal, their targets for 2035 have a cost estimated at USD 73.74 billion with adaptation requiring another USD 18-20 billion.  Nepal therefore faces a difficult situation as it must deal with the effects of climate change despite having limited financial resources. Every dollar spent repairing flood damage is a dollar not spent on healthcare, education, and development, a big opportunity cost. International funding must bridge this gap. But the form this funding takes matters. If wealthy countries can meet their own climate pledges by purchasing cheaper reductions in developing countries, equity is eroded. Poor nations supply land and resources while rich countries retain industrial comforts. A financial transfer does not automatically imply a fair act of justice.

The gods began dropping drachmas into the valleys, asking the mortals to spend them to reinforce the walls for the next flood.  Today’s carbon markets mirror this exchange. 

Laurie Parsons’ Carbon Colonialism argues that wealthy countries can shift environmental pressures beyond their own borders through the use of global supply chains. Allowing them to continue benefitting from consumption while production and environmental damage happens elsewhere. Carbon credits create a similar pattern as money always follows the cheaper option. Reducing one ton of emissions through forest conservation in Nepal is significantly cheaper than making expensive retrofitting changes to carbon-heavy industries in North America or Europe.

Olympus quickly realised that a handful of drachmas could purchase a mortal’s restraint far more cheaply than changing the way the gods themselves wielded their lightning and thunder.

This allows developing nations to secure capital for various green projects. At first, it can sound like a win-win situation with developed countries getting access to ‘low cost emissions reductions’. Supporters may argue that the atmosphere does not care where a ton of carbon is reduced and so cutting where it’s cheapest is most efficient for the global economy. But looking closer, it creates a moral hazard. Nepal becomes the place for outsourced carbon pledges, while patterns of domestic overconsumption in wealthy countries continue unabated. Is that really climate action? 

This imbalance extends to governance and control. If carbon projects involve forests, land or other resources, communities in poorer countries may have to live with the consequences of decisions made by governments or companies with greater financial power. While not all carbon credit projects can be termed exploitative, Parsons rightly shifts the attention away from where environmental damage is recorded, towards where the costs of global economic activity are actually experienced. If Nepal uses its limited land, money, and capacity for projects that help another country offset its emissions, those resources are no longer freely available for Nepal’s own sovereign priorities. A transaction can be legal, voluntary, and financially beneficial, yet remain fundamentally unequal. It is about who gets the benefit, who carries the cost, and who gets to decide.

This reality makes regulation essential. Nepal’s own climate strategy highlights the need for transparent systems, credible projects, and effective monitoring. Poorly regulated credits could cause financial activity without producing the climate benefits they promise. Economics becomes particularly important here and classical market failure comes into play. If the buyer cannot accurately know whether a credit represents a real additional reduction, there is an information gap between the person paying for the credit and reality. International credits must amplify,rather than replace domestic decarbonisation by wealthy countries. Otherwise, we will continue to live in a world where numbers in reports look better than the atmosphere. A dangerous illusion - cleaner figures without a cleaner reality. When the floods finally stopped, no drachma could compensate for the destruction.

Nepal’s tragedy also shows why climate finance cannot be linked to carbon credits alone. After the floods, Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal argued that Nepal should move beyond viewing international assistance as humanitarian relief and instead seek “justice and compensation” from major emitters. His argument reflects a distinction between preventing future emissions and dealing with damage already occurred. Carbon credits can finance an emission-reduction project, but it cannot undo destroyed villages or restore infrastructure. It cannot put a price on lives lost. That is the central weakness of treating climate responsibility as a simple financial transaction. For Nepal, a fair climate-finance system must address both sides of the crisis - helping reduce future emissions while also helping vulnerable communities survive consequences of damage already arriving.

Recent events have made this debate much more than just a question of finance or international policy. They have placed human cost at the centre of a crisis that was not created equally by all involved. Financial support can help vulnerable nations rebuild, adapt, and reduce emissions, but the fairness of that support cannot be measured by the amount of money transferred. It cannot erase responsibility and accountability. If carbon credits allow wealthy countries to take the moral high ground on paper while continuing to delay any structural reform at home, they risk turning climate responsibility into just another economic transaction. Genuine climate action requires transparency, accountability, and real emissions reductions from those with the greatest capacity to act. A fair deal should not leave vulnerable countries like Nepal paying for a crisis they did so little to create. Climate finance should help repair that imbalance, not deepen it.

Justice cannot mean tossing gold to mortals to survive a storm while Olympus continues to feed it.

Bibliography Citations

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