By Lead Authors: Adil Najam, David Runnalls, Mark Halle
This article has been reviewed by the following Topic Editor: Cutler Cleveland
Although the contemporary debate on globalization has been contentious, it has not always been useful. No one doubts that some very significant global processes—economic, social, cultural, political and environmental—are underway and that they affect (nearly) everyone and (nearly) everything. Yet, there is no agreement on exactly how to define this thing we call “globalization,” nor on exactly which parts of it are good or bad, and for whom. For the most part, a polarized view of globalization, its potential and its pitfalls has taken hold of the public imagination. It has often been projected either as a panacea for all the ills of the world or as their primary cause. The discussion on the links between environment and globalization has been similarly stuck in a quagmire of many unjustified expectations and fears about the connections between these two domains.
Although the debates on the definition and importance of globalization have been vigorous over time, we believe that the truly relevant policy questions today are about who benefits and who does not; how the benefits and the costs of these processes can be shared fairly; how the opportunities can be maximized by all; and how the risks can be minimized.
In addressing these questions, one can understand globalization to be a complex set of dynamics offering many opportunities to better the human condition, but also involving significant potential threats. Contemporary globalization manifests itself in various ways, three of which are of particular relevance to policy-makers. They also comprise significant environmental opportunities and risks.
1. Globalization of the economy. The world economy globalizes as national economies integrate into the international economy through trade; foreign direct investment; short-term capital flows; international movement of workers and people in general; and flows of technology.<2> This has created new opportunities for many; but not for all. It has also placed pressures on the global environment and on natural resources, straining the capacity of the environment to sustain itself and exposing human dependence on our environment.<3> A globalized economy can also produce globalized externalities and enhance global inequities.<4> Local environmental and economic decisions can contribute to global solutions and prosperity, but the environmental costs, as well as the economic ramifications of our actions, can be externalized to places and people who are so far away as to seem invisible.
2. Globalization of knowledge. As economies open up, more people become involved in the processes of knowledge integration and the deepening of non-market connections, including flows of information, culture, ideology and technology.<5> New technologies can solve old problems, but they can also create new ones. Technologies of environmental care can move across boundaries quicker, but so can technologies of environmental extraction. Information flows can connect workers and citizens across boundaries and oceans (e.g., the rise of global social movements as well as of outsourcing), but they can also threaten social and economic networks at the local level. Environmentalism as a norm has become truly global, but so has mass consumerism.
3. Globalization of governance. Globalization places great stress on existing patterns of global governance with the shrinking of both time and space; the expanding role of non-state actors; and the increasingly complex inter-state interactions.<6> The global nature of the environment demands global environmental governance, and indeed a worldwide infrastructure of international agreements and institutions has emerged and continues to grow.<7> But many of today’s global environmental problems have outgrown the governance systems designed to solve them.<8> Many of these institutions, however, struggle as they have to respond to an ever-increasing set of global challenges while remaining constrained by institutional design principles inherited from an earlier, more state-centric world.
Table 1. Environment and globalization: some examples of interaction.
How does globalization affect the environment? Means of influence How does environment affect globalization?
* Scale and composition of economic activity changes, and consumption increases, allowing for more widely dispersed externalities.
* Income increases, creating more resources for environmental protection.
* Techniques change as technologies are able to extract more from nature but can also become cleaner.
Economy
* Natural resource scarcity or/and abundance are drivers of globalization, as they incite supply and demand forces in global markets.
* The need for environmental amelioration can extract costs from economy and siphon resources away from development goals.
* Global interactions facilitate exchange of environmental knowledge and best practices.
* Environmental consciousness increases with emergence of global environmental networks and civil society movements.
* Globalization facilitates the spread of existing technologies and the emergence of new technologies, often replacing existing technologies with more extractive alternatives; greener technologies may also be spurred.
* Globalization helps spread a homogenization of consumption-driven aspirations.
Knowledge
* Signals of environmental stress travel fast in a compressed world, environmentally degraded and unsustainable locations become marginalized from trade, investment, etc.
* Sensibilities born out of environmental stress can push towards localization and non-consumptive development in retaliation to the thrust of globalization.
* Environmental stress can trigger alternative technological paths, e.g., dematerialization, alternative energy, etc., which may not have otherwise emerged.
* Environmentalism becomes a global norm.
* Globalization makes it increasingly difficult for states to rely only on national regulation to ensure the wellbeing of their citizens and their environment.
* There is a growing demand and need for global regulation, especially for the means to enforce existing agreements and build upon their synergies to improve environmental performance.
* Globalization facilitates the involvement of a growing diversity of participants and their coalitions in addressing environmental threats, including market and civil society actors.
Governance
* Environmental standards influence patterns of trade and investment nationally and internationally.
* The nature of environmental challenges requires the incorporation of environmental governance into other areas (e.g., trade, investment, health, labour, etc.).
* Stakeholder participation in global environmental governance—especially the participation of NGOs and civil society—has become a model for other areas of global governance.
Author: Dr. Harmander Singh
Be Happy Philselfologically: The Research on Free and Renewable Energy as Quantum, Classical and Sacred Systems! 🙂
