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Carlie Wilson HCOL 185 10/30/12 The Globalization of Pollution Climate change is taking place within a rapidly changing world. As the world becomes globalized, people and places become increasingly interconnected through converging economic, political and cultural activities. The world economy is becoming unified through the reduction of international trade barriers and intensification of worldwide social relations, which link distant localities. The consequences of globalization play a key role in determining the future of anthropogenic climate change. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of developing versus developed countries on global climate change. In addition to the direct contributions of transnational corporations to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, globalization also has the potential to exacerbate climate change by causing more rapid deforestations and industrialization of developing countries and consequently higher levels of fuel consumption by consumers around the world (O’Brien et al, 2000). I will consider the impact of emissions from both developed and developing countries, the controversy over limiting emissions in developing countries, the unequal distribution of risk from climate change, and the projected effects of globalization on global warming. The leading emitters of GHGs are China, the United States, the European Union, India, and Russia. Of the five leaders mentioned above, the only two that have been increasing their emissions at a rapid rate over the past four years are the developing countries of China and India. This increase is expected from growing economies as they industrialize and increase their energy demands. In 2008, China was emitting 23% of all GHGs and India was emitting 6% (Global Emissions, 2012). Carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 150% in China and by 75% in 1 India since 2002. In contrast, the other three regions responsible for the majority of GHG emissions (the United States, the European Union, and Russia) have all decreased their relative contributions to global GHG emissions (Olivier et al, 2012). If the current trends continue, China is expected to account for 40% of the world’s total emissions by 2050 (Diamond, 2005). These statistics indicate that the economies of developing countries are consuming large quantities of fossil fuels and are responsible for a significant portion of the GHGs that will contribute to future anthropogenic climate change. Developed countries have now been attempting to reduce their GHG emissions for twenty years. The first UN-sponsored international meeting to address climate change occurred in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 when 167 countries signed an agreement to voluntarily limit their GHG emissions. However, none of these countries reached their emissions reduction target and the agreement lacked specifics regarding what should be done and when. Five years later in 1997, another meeting occurred in Kyoto when 30 western industrialized nations who were responsible for most GHG emissions agreed to reduce their emissions back to 1990 levels by 2012. This Kyoto Protocol had force of international law once ratified, however ratification was difficult to obtain. In fact, the United States never ratified the agreement even though it was the leading GHG emitter at the time. This was based on the fear that it would harm the economy and also because India and China, as developing countries, were not subject to any emissions restrictions. The third phase of international emissions reduction negotiations was the Copenhagen Accord, which was signed by 188 countries at the Copenhagen meeting in December 2009. Some progress was made, including the agreement that global warming is an urgent problem, however overall it was largely a disappointment that more was not achieved (Rowntree et al, 2012). 2 Although these international meetings are a good start toward global cooperation regarding anthropogenic climate change, significant problems still remain, such as addressing the impacts of developing countries. Globalization is causing once remote nations to experience rapid economic growth so that they can compete in the global economy. This industrialization goes hand in hand with increased energy demands and fossil fuel consumption. The controversy lies in whether developing countries that are making significant contributions to global GHG emissions, namely China and India, should be treated differently than developed nations when negotiating emission reductions. They believe that it is unfair that they should be expected to adhere to any admission reduction plan because they are different in structure, character and history than the developed economies of the United States, Europe, Russia and Japan. These First World countries created the problem in the first place as they were building their economies through unrestricted GHG emissions and establishing themselves as world powers (Rowntree et al, 2012). Developing countries believe that they are entitled to the same opportunity. Climate change skeptics even argue that developed countries are trying to limit GHG emissions in the developing world not to reduce global warming, but to prevent other countries from surpassing them in economic growth. While China has surpassed the United States in overall emissions, it is important to keep in mind that China is home to a much larger percentage of the world’s people with a staggering population of about 1.35 billion. “In 2010, the United States alone generated almost 18% of world CO2 emissions, despite having a population of less than 5% of the global total. Conversely, China contributed a comparable share of world emissions (24%) while accounting for 20% of the world population” (CO2 Emissions, 2012). Per capita emissions show that the United States is still three times higher than China and twelve times higher than India (Olivier et 3 al, 2012). The ultimate goal for China and other developing countries is to attain first world living standards, which requires large fossil fuel consumption. China will not tolerate being told not to aspire to First World levels and it is hypocritical for the United States and the rest of the First World to demand that developing countries stop striving to attain the lifestyle that Americans continue to enjoy. However, if China were to achieve First World standards the total global production/consumptions rate would increase by 94%; simply stated, the entire world’s human resource and environmental impact would double. “The world cannot sustain China and other Third World countries and current First World countries all operating at First World levels” (Diamond, 2005). Clearly this is not a viable option for the future and with the Earth fast approaching a critical threshold for the amount of GHG emissions it can tolerate before entering a positive feedback loop (that will cause global warming to spiral out of control) it is clear that all countries must change their current pattern of fossil fuel consumption whether they are developing or developed (McKibben, 2012). Another interesting dynamic that exists between the developed and developing world is pollution exporting and the idea of the ‘zero-sum game’ in terms of development. The trend that currently exists worldwide regarding the movement of energy and resources is extraction at the periphery (developing countries), and consumption by economies in the core (first world, developed countries). For most of the developing world apart from China and India, the main source of carbon emissions come from deforestation rather than the burning of fossil fuels (Rowntree et al, 2012). Forests are sinks for carbon dioxide because trees fix and store carbon in the air through the process of photosynthesis. When these trees are cut down the area no longer functions as a sink and the burning of wood releases the stored carbon back into the atmosphere. As these countries develop they have been transforming forests into farmlands to increase food 4 production and create more space for their growing populations. However, the main driving force behind clear-cutting their forests is not agriculture or population growth, but rather commercial logging to supply timber to the global market. Southeast Asia has long been the world’s most important supplier of tropical hardwoods and the logging process has destroyed most of the tropical forests in this region (Rowntree et al, 2012). For example, Japan has stopped cutting down trees on their own land but that doesn’t mean that their demand for timber has decreased. Instead, they import timber from elsewhere, namely Southeast Asia and western North America, which is essentially just relocating the deforestation. Additionally, as the rainforests of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines diminish, Japan is turning its interests toward Latin American and Africa as sources of hardwoods (Rowntree et al, 2012). Japan among other countries has also exported its pollution by moving its dirtier factories to other countries with less strict environmental regulations. Because these countries want to develop and secure better living standards for their people, they allow large transnational corporations to come in with very little governmental interference. However as soon as the local resources begin to diminish, the corporations shift their attention elsewhere and the country is left with pollution and a degraded environment. Furthermore the ‘zero-sum game’ in terms of global development refers to the phenomenon that the accumulation of money and technology in core areas of the world occurs at the expense of the natural resources, environment, and health of their peripheries. “The wastefulness and unsustainability of industrial resource management is made possible by displacing environmental impacts to other areas, populations, or social categories” (Hornborg, 2009). The reason why rapid deforestation and industrialization is occurring in developing nations is to satisfy the demands of the First World. According to a recent study, 32% of global 5 carbon emissions support consumption in countries other than where they were emitted. The study also found that the average carbon emission in the world actually ends up supporting economic growth in a country other than where the emission occurred (Bergmann, 2012). In other words, a significant amount of emissions are occurring in developing countries like China to allow for the current trends of consumption seen in First World countries like the United States. Transnational corporations are cropping up all over the developing world because of lax environmental regulations and lack of labor protections, oversight, and adequate compensation. This allows industries in these countries to produce cheap goods to meet the demands of core economies. China is a prime example of this because they also have a highly productive industrial infrastructure, which allows them to produce the cheap goods on a massive scale. In fact, China was able to achieve conditions for sustained economic growth by opening Special Economic Zones in which foreign investment was welcome and state interference minimal providing cheap land and labor. This strategy proved extremely successful for China because it attracted foreign investment to generate exports, which provided income to supply China with capital to build its infrastructure (Rowntree et al, 2012). China is now the leading exporter in the world, exporting $1.9 trillion of goods a year. Not surprisingly, the United States is the largest importer of goods and we import $2.2 trillion annually (United States, 2011). In this way, the United States is able to reap the benefits of the cheap goods produced in China while China is forced to carry the heavy industrial burden and suffers from extreme pollution and the accompanying health problems. It is easy for us to point fingers at China and scold them for their reckless emissions, however the truth is that their emissions would not occur without 6 developed economies willing to support their industries by buying their goods and through transnational corporations. Additionally, the majority of developing countries around the world currently contribute negligible GHG emissions, and yet they are expected to suffer most from climate change. The risks of climate change are not evenly distributed, and it is predicted that the most vulnerable areas, (i.e. Africa, small island nations) will experience hardships such as flooding from rising sea levels, an increase in severe weather and a decrease in food security and water availability due to changing rainfall and agriculture dynamics. Many developing countries that are not contributing to or benefiting from GHG emissions will be forced to confront the negative consequences climate change. For example, much of Africa has been excluded from globalization thus far, and yet two-thirds of the continent is comprised of dry lands, which are highly vulnerable to climate change. Water shortage and drought would be exacerbated by the expected increase in temperatures and decrease in precipitation and widespread poverty makes the region even more susceptible because of limited adaptation abilities (O’Brien et al, 2000). Another example of uneven risk distribution is in South and Southeast Asia. In South Asia, the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta in Bangladesh is in danger of inundation from even a minor rise in sea level. A 2007 report from the Indian government suggests that up to 7 million people could be displaced by the end of the century due to a predicted one-meter rise in sea level. Agriculture is South Asia is also expected to suffer due to the rapidly retreating Himalayan glaciers, threatening the dry season water supplies to the Indus-Ganges Plain (Rowntree, 2012). The consequences for Southeast Asia are even more severe. Most of the population density in this region is concentrated in coastal and delta environments that are particularly vulnerable to rises in sea levels. “A 2009 study by the Asia Development Bank found that Indonesia, 7 Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines could suffer climate-change damages of more than twice the global average by the end of the century” and sea level rise could put as many as 2,000 islands underwater in Indonesia alone by the mid 2000s (Rowntree et al, 2012). Obviously climate change will also have negative consequences for the First World, however the Third World is expected to suffer much more because their socioeconomic conditions are generally much poorer causing them to be more vulnerable and less resilient (O’Brien et al, 2000). Despite these grim statistics, there is still reason for hope. Although China’s emission rate continues to increase, the growth has been slowed to almost half the economic growth rate over the past two decades through economic reform, energy efficiency improvements, switching from coal to natural gas, renewable energy development, afforestation and slowing population growth. “In India, key factors in GHG emission reductions have been economic restructuring, local environmental protection, and technological change, mediated through economic reform, enforcement of clean air laws by the nation’s highest court, renewable energy incentives and development programs funded by the national government and foreign donors” (Climate Change, 2007). Developing countries do not have to follow the same fossil fuel consumption path taken by developed countries. Policies and technology advancing energy efficiency and renewable energy use can allow developing countries, which need to increase their energy consumption in order to fuel their social and economic development, do so in a cleaner and more sustainable manner. In effect this can have a significant impact on energy trends, social progress and environmental quality in developing countries (Climate Change, 2007). Developed and developing countries are both contributing to climate change and the phenomenon of globalization is rapidly increasing industrialization and deforestation worldwide, 8 which will lead to even more pollution if preventative actions are not taken very soon. The effects of climate change are unevenly distributed and countries contributing the most will not necessarily be the ones first suffering the consequences. Anthropogenic pollution is undoubtedly a very serious problem and the magnitude and severity of anthropogenic climate change will depend on the emission reduction actions taken in the near future by both developed and developing countries to respond to this problem. 9 Works Cited Bergmann, Luke. "Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences." COMPETING VALUES IN CARBON ACCOUNTING PROJECT REPORT. University of Minnesota, July 29 2011. <http://lawvalue.umn.edu/prod/groups/ahc/@pub/@ahc/@consortlv/documents/asset/ahc _asset_368293.pdf>. "Climate Change 2007: Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change." IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007. IPCC, n.d. Web. 12 Dec 2012. <http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch12s12-2-1-1.html>. "CO2 Emissions From Fuel Combustion Highlights." IEA Statistics. International Energy Agency. Web. 12 Dec 2012. <http://www.iea.org/co2highlights/co2highlights.pdf>. Diamond, Jared. Collapse. New York: Penguin Group, 2005. Print. "Global Emissions." Climate Change. United States Environmental Protections Agency, 14 2012. Web. 28 Oct 2012. <http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/global.html> . Hornborg, Alf. " Zero-Sum World Challenges in Conceptualizing Environmental Load Displacement and Ecologically Unequal Exchange in the World-System." International Journal of Comparative Sociology. 50.3-4 (2009): 237-262. Print. <http://cos.sagepub.com/content/50/3-4/237.full.pdf html>. O'Brien, Karen L., and Robin M. Leichenko. "Double exposure: assessing the impacts of climate change within the context of economic globalization." Global Environmental Change. 10. (2000): 221-232. <http://afrim.org.ph/AIDLS/archive/files/35ff09c7e47336b9d1c425f1bd9603d5.pdf >. Olivier, Jos G.J., Greet Janssens-Maenhout, and Jeroen A.H.W. Peters. "Trends in Global CO2 Emissions; 2012 Report." PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. (2012): n. page. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/CO2REPORT2012.pdf >. Rowntree, Les, Martin Lewis, Marie Price, and William Wyckoff. Diversity Amid Globalization; World Regions, Environment, Development. 5th . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2012. Print. United States. Central Intelligence Agency. World Factbook. 2011. Web. <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2087rank.html>. 10