Globalization allows for the rapid movement of goods, allowing rich countries to preserve their nature but at the cost of harming the nature of poor countries.
Globalization is everywhere – we eat imported food, order deliveries from Express, order clothes from Next and assemble furniture from IKEA. Products move from one country to another with amazing ease. This allows the economy to thrive, but the gains and losses are not distributed evenly across the globe – financially and environmentally. A new study has found that rich countries preserve their nature at the expense of significantly damaging the nature of poor countries.
To consider others
“The comparative advantage of some poor countries is their nature,” says Prof. Ilan Noy, head of the chair of disaster economics and climate change at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, a member of the Gran Sasso Scientific Institute in Italy and a visiting lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “Countries that have a lot of ‘environment,’ forests and natural products, export a lot of them to countries that don’t,” he explains. When Western countries have a demand for wood for construction, for example, they will get it from countries where trees are still being cut down for these purposes. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Since the 90s, more than 4 million square kilometers of forests have been cut down worldwide. For comparison, this is Their size of all the European Union countries combined. In addition, according to UN data, the expansion of agricultural production is the cause of 90 percent From deforestation In the world. This is seen in poor countries where many forested areas have been cleared for agricultural crops for export purposes – to rich countries.
"From an economic perspective, when we decide whether to act this way or that way, we don't care about others. We ignore the external effects of our action and only want to profit – whether the effect on others is positive or negative," explains Noy. The classic example is a polluting factory located near a river downstream of a fishing village. "As a result of the factory's pollution, the fish die. The pollution of the stream increases the factory's profit and harms the fishermen's profit," he says. In such a situation, the simple solution is to incorporate the cost of pollution into the factory's economic activity, so that it is obliged to also consider the damage that its activity causes. Government enforcement, for example, can lead to the collection of an economic price – such as taxes and fines – from the polluter or a ban on its polluting activity. In such a situation, economic activity will take into account the costs of pollution.
We live in a world where we trade. That is, we do not produce everything we consume for ourselves. Photo: pixabay
Not in my backyard.
"The situation becomes complicated if the river crosses a border between countries," says Noy. In such a case, if the factory is in one country and the fishermen are in another, then an arrangement between the two governments is required. "On the global level, there is no 'central planning' that tries to maximize the social benefit of everyone. Each country maximizes its own profit. Therefore, the factory will continue to pollute if the pollution does not affect anyone in its own country," he says.
New article Published in the journal Nature, the study examined the damage to biodiversity in these regions due to the export of products such as rice, palm oil, beef products and timber for construction. The study examined how much of the environmental damage in poor countries with a rich natural environment (like Madagascar) can be attributed to richer countries (like the United States). Madagascar is suffering severe damage to its nature due to the cultivation of vanilla, which has expanded greatly in the country since its market prices rose about a decade ago. The cultivation is done at the expense of the natural environment on the tropical island. The new income allows farmers to prosper, the agricultural industry to grow and the economy to grow. At the same time, the study found that trade between countries leads to a decline in biodiversity at a rate 15 times higher in poor countries than in rich countries. Among the habitats that are affected are also the tropical forests of Brazil and Indonesia – which have an especially high diversity of species. It was also found that there is more widespread damage in countries adjacent to the importing country. For example, the United States is primarily damaging the habitats of Central America, and Japan and China are primarily responsible for destruction in Southeast Asia.
According to Noy, the results of the study are not surprising. "We live in a world where we trade. That is, we do not produce everything we consume for ourselves – not as a country, not as a city and certainly not as individuals, so we rely on imports from other places. If we want to prevent damage in another region, we will have to produce everything ourselves, but then the standard of living will decrease." In other words, giving up trade means a decrease in the abundance and quantity of products available for purchase.
According to the report "The economics of biodiversity" Wrote economist Prof. Preeta Dasgupta, the diversity of species in nature is of great economic importance. One of the main conclusions is that humanity's current demand from nature exceeds nature's ability to provide us with its resources. In fact, more than "one planet" is required to support today's human lifestyle. Dasgupta criticizes the use of economic output as a measure that does not take into account the destruction of the natural environment. According to Dasgupta"Sustainable economic growth and development require the understanding that long-term prosperity rests on a balance between our demands on nature and its ability to provide them."
The complexity of nature conservation
Absurdly, when we try to preserve nature, we risk harming it. study Another recently published study showed that restoring farmland in Britain to its original purpose – as natural areas – could harm the conservation of species diversity at a global level. The reason is that when European countries reduce food production on their territory, they are forced to consume food produced in other regions where nature conservation oversight may be weaker, and natural species diversity may be much greater. “Protecting the environment is a luxury,” Noy notes. Therefore, richer countries can afford it more.
To deal with the damage and the inequality in the areas where it occurs, it is possible to promote policies in which the cost of environmental damage is reflected In product prices On a global level. In this way, it will be possible to assess and address environmental damage – another step towards a sustainable economy and production. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United NationsIt is possible to improve the efficiency of agricultural crops while ensuring that deforestation is stopped.
What can we do? As consumers, we can check which products are particularly harmful. "Many forests have been cut down to make way for growing Beef"It's an industry that is very damaging to forests," says Noy. "The obvious solution is to stop consuming such a product, or consume much less of it." The common rule of thumb for these solutions is consideration. For society as a whole to prosper, the benefit of everyone must be taken into account. "Negative impacts that are economically harmful - not only to us, but also to others - must be reduced, and positive impacts that benefit everyone must be encouraged," concludes Noy.
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