Supplementary Files of Carbon as a Commodity Venture: An Exploratory Ontological, Epistemic, and Axiological Analysis of Market-Based Climate Governance

Market-based climate policy has become a dominant approach to managing climate change by turning environmental disruptions into measurable and comparable economic constructs. Within this framework, carbon markets stand as the most established mechanism for implementing mitigation through valuation, exchange eligibility, and institutional coordination. This study investigates whether these mechanisms lead to a fundamental economic transformation or primarily serve to stabilise existing value regimes. Using an integrative review rooted in critical realism, the analysis combines systematic literature review, critical discourse analysis, causal layered analysis, and comparative assessment of GDP-normalised global economic indicators. Academic studies, Conference of the Parties decisions, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, and global economic data are analysed through layered ontological, epistemological, and axiological perspectives. The findings reveal that carbon is constructed as a tangible governance object through abstraction and measurement, made governable through epistemic stabilisation and procedural authority, and appraised through dominant utilitarian and feasibility-based value rationalities. Empirical comparison shows persistent growth in carbon-related value despite stagnation in other areas, suggesting governance-driven valuation expansion without a fundamental structural shift. These results encourage future research on regenerative economic governance that internalises responsibility, aligns ecological restoration with economic timelines, and addresses distributive justice beyond the mediation of market mechanisms.