the political economy of the environment

Leo Yasuda 1M170545-3Liu Fangjie 1M161092-7Ami Noma 1M170334-4

Introduction

Spread of capitalism and growth of the world economy alters the global environment

Optimists vs Critics towards net ecological impact of global political economy

Optimists view globalization of capitalism as a source of progress and ingenuity and

cooperation, resulting in a better environmental conditions for all

Critics view it as an acceleration of the process of exploitation of nature and humanity, moving

to an ecological meltdown

Introduction cont’d : optimists’ View

“Towards Prosperity and sustainability”

Optimists - globalization of trade, technology, and investment as fostering economic growth

and raising per capita incomes

Globalization - promote global integration, cooperation, common environmental norms and

standards, which enhances the capacity of a system of sovereign states to manage problems

ex) environmental writers Julian Simon, Gregg Easterbrook, and Bjorn Lomborg

Prove Malthusians wrong - Green Revolution of 1960s

Introduction cont’d : critics’ view

Growing integration among economies increase the reach and intensity of ecological shadows,

which tend to shift the ecological damage of more powerful economies on to weaker economies

and future generations

Globalization is encouraging ever more economic growth and production with no real concern

about unequal or unsustainable patterns of consumption

Unless strict restraints are made, humans will exhaust the globe’s natural resources, fill its sinks,

and overstep the earth’s capacity to support life

- half the world’s forests and wetlands are already gone

- every day another ten to 500 species become extinct

Introduction conclusion

Globalization produces both constructive and destructive ecological processes

Goal - harness economic globalization in some way to ensure sustainability

History of Global Enviromentalism

Outline

•The stockholm conference and the 1970s

•The Brundtland Commission

•The Rio (Earth) Summit

•Johannesburg and beyond

Intro

Def: Environmentalism denotes a social movement that seeks to

influence the political process by lobbying, activism, and education in

order to protect natural resources and ecosystems.

•For most of the history of civilization, human activity

could not affect environment

•The situation changed with the industrial revolution

250 years ago

•More and more concerns about biological impacts of

industrialization and agricultural production

The stockholm conference and the 1970s

•First global United conference on

environment for state officials

•Different interests of south and north

parties

•The pollution of poverty

•Declaration on the Human Environment

•Decision to create UNEP

•OPEC’s success in limiting oil output

•A great deals of environmental activities in

1970s and 1980s

•Focus on sustainable development

The Brundtland Commission

•The publication in 1987 of the World

Commission on Environment and

Development (WCED) report, Our Common

Future

•Commonly known as Brundtland Report,

seen as a watershed in the evolution of

environmental debates

•The report’s calls

The Rio (Earth) Summit

•The first summit of world leaders on the

global environment, later became the 1992

United Nations Conference on Environment

and Development (UNCED)

•UNCED, popularly known as Rio or Earth

Summit

•Rio Declaration with 27 principles

•Criticism against the Rio Summit

•The global community continued on

implementing sustainable development

Johannesburg and beyond

•World Summit on Sustainable Development is

popularly called Rio +10, or the Johannesburg

Summit

•The Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable

Development reflects the debates over

globaliztion

•Critics’ opinions on Johannesburg summit

Economic growth, trade, and corporations

Advocates of economic growth, trade, and corporations

a world free from poverty is a global goal

there is a way of achieving this without harming the environment

environmental Kuznets curve

If economic growth can balance pollution...

Can low per capita countries blindly seek economic growth if economic growth will eventually

lead to a better environment?

The Kuznets curve tells two things

1. in the long-run economic growth will improve environmental institutions and government

2. ecological markets, technological advances, and global institutions can "tunnel" through the

middle of the curve

Free trade as a solution

Absolute and Comparative advantage can help "tunnel" through the curve

efficient world wide production and can transfer high environmental technologies

and standards

stimulates global economic growth and raises national per capita incomes

more can be spent to preserve the economy

Globalization of corporations

Transnational corporations transmit technologies, expertise, and funds to the south

Countries who do not globalize North Korea/ sub saharan Africa have the opposite effect

Often they employ higher environmental standards and transmit these (exporting

environmentalism)

Critics of economic growth, trade, and corporations

Critics argue that the curve is too simplistic

it is undeniable that there is an unfair overconsumption

Free trade can lead to higher consumption often ignoring the enviornment

a sustainable future?

sustainable future?

focus on the possibility of having the sustainable global economy

- Is funding sufficient?

- Are sustainable development and environmental agreements

effective?

1. Global environmental financing

2. Three international regimes

financing sustainable development

actual circumstances:

Financial assistance to the development are far too low

in total.

Because …

● Developed countries are unwilling to commit and finance

● They use agreement and assistance as the excuse to exploit

the labors and natural resources from developing countries

Global Environmental Facility (GEF)

One of the few financing facilities for specific global environmental initiatives

14 donor states and 18 recipient states

Have co-financed 4000 projects in 180 countries

Critics:

“ top-down, secretive, greenwash, too much influence from the World

Bank”

the political economy of the environmental regimes

there are over 1200 multilateral environmental agreements today

but, many of environmental regimes are weakened or delayed

because of …

1. ongoing research within scientific community

2. intentional delay by the corporations

3. domestic political influence of corporations

top priority of all states is maintaining economic growths

other factors of delay

1. lack of staffs of secretariats

2. technical and political problems of South- not enough finance, personnel, and technologies

- less infrastructure and experience

1. bureaucratic reason of North - long process of confirming scientific explanation

- efforts of lobbyists to weaken

ozone depletion regime

one of the few “successful” example of environmental regime

to reduce the production and consumption of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC)

↪︎ deplete the ozone layer

1985 - finding of “hole”, Vienna Convention

1987 - Montreal Protocol

1990 - agreement of the South

Four conferences to strengthen the protocol

ozone depletion regime

1. consumption of CFC in the South was reduced around 60% by

2004

2. ozone layer will return to pre-1980 level by 2050

3. 95% reduction of the use of ozone-depleting chemicals

Climate change regime (Global warming)

● Global temperature rose by 0.3-0.6 degrees Celsius during

20s century

● The melting polar ice caps have been shrinking since the

beginning of 1980s

● States in OPEC opposed effort to reduce the global

dependence on oil

● While 39 Countries in the Alliance of Small Island States

support effort to halt the sea level.

● China pledged to scale back greenhouse gas emissions

Climate change regime (Paris Agreement 2015)

● Limit warming to no more than 2 degrees above pre-

industrial level

● Add aspirational target of no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius

● Required developed countries (including Russia) to reduce

emissions of six greenhouse gases by 5% below 1990 levels

on average

● A far cry from the mechanisms and measures necessary to

decarbonize

Thank you for listening！