Download 30 Nov GPE

Globalization and the
Environment
What is today’s most pressing environmental
problem?
• What should be done about it?
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uULTKOJY9M
•Is Globalization bad for the environment?
The pro-globalization case
Poverty as a cause of environmental problems
• Deforestation
• Desertification
• Unsanitary water
• Population growth
• Downward spiral
Environmental Kuznets Curve
Environmental Kuznets Curve
• Citizens’ demands
• Firms’ and governments’ financial and institutional capacity
• Industry to services
• Eg: Japan
Free Trade
• Comparative advantage and efficiency
• Technology
• Competition and productivity
• Price signals
• Cleaner industries
• Market access. Eg: California emissions standards
• Green markets
MNCs
• Technologies, expertise and funds. Eg: SSA and NK.
• Higher standards: tech and management; pressure; codes of conduct
and risk management; efficiency and competitiveness.
• Voluntary trend to wards ‘greening’.
• ‘Tunnel through’ K curve.
Critics
• Stuck along K curve
• Irreplaceable losses
• Cumulative change and crisis
• Not all pollutants. Eg: CO2.
• Relocated polluters. Eg: Japan.
• Unequal consumption.
• Consumerism.
• Production and consumption distance.
• Unsustainable growth and consumption.
• Prices of traded goods don’t reflect costs.
• Race to the bottom: pollution havens and double standards.
• North exploiting South: pollution and unsustainable resource exports.
• Illegal and destructive practices. Eg: loggers, miners, oil comps,
chemical comps.
Why is it difficult to tackle environmental
challenges like climate change?
• http://www.theonion.com/article/marxists-apartment-a-microcosmof-why-marxism-does-1382
4 main types of goods
• “Private goods” are excludable: it is possible to prevent others from
getting them. There is also rivalry for private goods. If you have one, it
means that no one else can have it.
• “Public goods” are nonexcludable and nonrivalrous
• “Club goods” are excludable and nonrivalrous.
• “Common goods” are nonexcludable and rivalrous.
• public goods: underprovision; free riders
• common goods: the “tragedy of the commons” – Garrett Hardin
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs2P0wRod8U
• Elinor Ostrom:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr5Q3VvpI7w
Externalities
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jlyv1hCTr0
The Ozone: reason for optimism?
Ozone depletion
• Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
• 1985: ‘hole’ found over Antarctica
• 1987 Montreal Protocol: ltd CFC and halon production
• 1990: South agreed to phase out.
• MP parties created Multilateral Fund for the Implementation of MP
• More conferences
• http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36674996
Reasons
• Mid-1980s: 21 firms in 16 countries; 88% in North
• #1 producer DuPont sought substitutes and phased out CFCs
• Different for climate change?
• https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/test/climatechange/ghgemissi
ons/global.html
• https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jan/31/worldcarbon-dioxide-emissions-country-data-co2
12 December 2015 Paris Climate Change
Agreement
• 195 countries
• To keep global temperatures "well below" 2.0C (3.6F) above preindustrial times and "endeavour to limit" them even more, to 1.5C
• To limit the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity
to the same levels that trees, soil and oceans can absorb naturally,
beginning at some point between 2050 and 2100
• To review each country's contribution to cutting emissions every five
years so they scale up to the challenge
• For rich countries to help poorer nations by providing "climate
finance" to adapt to climate change and switch to renewable energy.
• Christiana Figueres:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIA_1xQc7x8
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/us/poli
tics/donald-trump-visit.html
• On climate change, Mr. Trump refused to repeat his promise to
abandon the international climate accord reached last year in Paris,
saying, “I’m looking at it very closely.” Despite the recent
appointment to his transition team of a fierce critic of the Paris
accords, Mr. Trump said that “I have an open mind to it” and that
clean air and “crystal clear water” were vitally important.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/business/e
nergy-environment/china-coal-climatechange.html?_r=0
• America’s uncertain stance toward global warming under the coming
administration of Donald J. Trump has given China a leading role in
the fight against climate change. It has called on the United States to
recognize established science and to work with other countries to
reduce dependence on dirty fuels like coal and oil. But there is a
problem: Even as it does so, China is scrambling to mine and burn
more coal. A lack of stockpiles and worries about electricity blackouts
are spurring Chinese officials to reverse curbs that once helped
reduce coal production. Mines are reopening. Miners are being lured
back with fatter paychecks.