Tender for the Programme - South West Catchments Council

DRAFT
South West Regional NRM Strategy – Ancillary Document
76% of global consumption expenditure. This brings us to the second argument, which is that as countries
develop, people tend to shift the production, and hence the pollution, onto less developed nations. This
creates a gap between consumption and production, which distances the consumer both physically and
ethically from the negative implications of consumption, further encouraging more consumption. In other
words, if I don’t see the net effect of my purchases here in Australia, because the factory underpaying the
workers and producing pollution is in China, I can go out on a spending spree guilt free.
The Environmental Kuznets curve
This gap is further highlighted when one considers the inequity in carbon produced between developed
and developing nations. Current data from the World Bank suggests that the bulk of CO2 emissions
produced in 2002 overwhelmingly came from countries with a high-income average. This debunks the
underlying assumption of the environmental Kuznets curve, because clearly, as per capital income
increases, pollution also goes up and up (see graph below).
If globalisation was supposed to result in improved technology, which facilitates more efficient and
pollution-free production, then it is clear that on balance, this has not occurred either.
The Jevons paradox states that increased efficiency through technological progress leads to increased
consumption, as human behaviour dictates that an increased demand for a resource occurs as the cost is
lowered. The classic example used to illustrate this phenomenon is that in creating more fuel-efficient
cars, you have billions of fuel-efficient cars purchased, rather than millions of inefficient cars. So an
increase in technology and efficiency through globalisation has the effect of increasing consumption and
hence environmental degradation.
Critics also point to the fact that the focus of globalisation is on profit and economic success, through trade
liberalisation, and the environment necessarily becomes a secondary consideration. As Roe and Eaton
put it, “WTO rules do not consider the value of such elements as clean air and fresh water”. Globalisation
inherently causes environmental damage through the increase in transport, goods, infrastructure and
energy consumption that occurs out of necessity as world markets are linked together. As markets move
from local to global, the physical space between the consumer and producer increases. This not only
results in higher transport costs to the environment, but also infrastructure to support the transfer of these
goods.
In attempting to combat globalisation’s effect on environmental degradation, a major barrier is the
increasing number of actors in the global political economy, and their decreasing levels of accountability.
At the very heart of this problem lies the shift in power that has occurred from states to markets, and the
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