The governance of climate-mitigating assets and the diverging power of landowners

While there is much research examining assets that drive or are threatened by climate change, this paper highlights the dynamics surrounding a third type, climate-mitigating assets, which help alleviate climate change and may thus increase in value. I argue that these assets warrant closer attention, as meanings attached to them underpin distinct forms of power for different owners and interact with states’ climate mitigation strategies. Land can be a key mitigation asset, crucial for carbon sequestration and biodiversity. Examining Scotland’s land use-based mitigation strategy as an extreme case, the paper shows how concentrated private ownership and diverging land use interests generate governance challenges and intensify power struggles over assets. Established landowners gain control-based power from owning assets that are in high demand due to climate change. At the same time, Scotland’s reliance on private finance has drawn financial actors into the land market, whose capital mobility further expands their power related to climate-mitigating assets and who focus on competitive returns above all else, exposing mitigation efforts to market volatility. Adopting an asset-centred perspective, the paper conceptualises climate-mitigating assets, highlighting the renewed importance of control-based power, and proposes hypotheses on how different owners derive distinct power from the same asset.