What are the environmental impacts of globalisation?

Pro-globalisation

Integration in the world economy contributes to environmental improvements by promoting growth, increasing incomes, improving property rights and the allowing the efficient use of resources.

The major cause of environmental damage is market failure. Market failure is when those who are producing or consuming goods or services do not have to bear the full costs of their actions, such as the cost of pollution.

The remedy is to make the polluter pay. Indeed the principle that the polluter should pay is an important Principle in both the Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas emissions and agreements to control acid rain in the United States and Europe.

What is required to impose ‘polluter pays’ principles on a global basis is stronger democratic institutions so that those who feel the impact of pollution can exercise their political rights to have it stopped.

The idea that global companies are engaged in a wholesale migration of polluting industries to developing countries has no basis in fact. Pollution control is a very small component of the cost of production in any industry. It would not be worth closing a factory and shifting it overseas just to avoid pollution control More likely is that companies in democratic countries respond to political pressure to innovate and improve their environmental performance.

Global businesses are working hard to improve their environmental performance, with greater emphasis upon environmental reporting. A growing number of companies in sensitive industries, such as mining, forestry and chemicals, are producing independently audited environmental reports.

WTO rules expressly permit countries to take actions to protect human, animal or plant life or health, and to conserve exhaustible natural resources. However, such restrictions must pursue legitimate environmental objectives, and not be a disguised form of trade protectionism. The WTO rules do not prevent countries from banning or restricting the marketing of genetically modified organisms.

Links:

Bjorn Lomborg has ignited a storm of controversy with his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, which criticises the prophets of doom that populate the environment movement. He argues that the global environment is in pretty good shape, and getting better. His web-site, including sample chapters, gives space to his critics.
http://www.lomborg.com/

Policynetwork is an international network of sites of think-tanks around the world, including third world countries, which provide market-based solutions to development, trade and environment issues http://policynetwork.net

The Sustainable Development Network is a network of individuals and non-governmental organizations which promotes debate on issues which pertain to sustainable development including environmental and trade policy, economic policy, health, and legal frameworks. Its focus is on the institutional framework required to bring about sustainable development at local, national and global levels.http://www.sdnetwork.net

An analysis of the regulation impact on developing countries of environmental rules is avalible from the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development http://www.unctad.org/en/pub/pubframe.htm

The Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington works on environment and trade issues http://www.cei.org

Anti-globalisation

One of the drivers of globalisation is that transnational companies want to place environmentally degrading industries in countries that do not have adequate environmental controls.

Resource industries such as forestry, mining and fisheries exploit the resources of poor countries with little regard to either the long term cost to the country in terms of the loss of a national resource, or to the environment.

Agricultural seed companies are destroying the biodiversity of the planet and depriving subsistence farmers of their livelihood.

Processes of industrialisation are leading to global warming and a deterioration of the atmospheric quality. Developing countries have been excluded from the Kyoto Protocol, providing a loophole for transnational companies.

The World Trade Organisation does not make it possible to block the trade in goods and services that are produced by environmentally damaging methods.

Links:

WWF (formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund) is one of the world's largest conservation organizations
http://www.panda.org

Greenpeace is a global environmental NGO which focuses on the worldwide environment issues
http://www.greenpeace.org

Friends of the Earth International is a federation of autonomous environmental organizations from all over the world.
http://www.foei.org/

The International Institute for Sustainable Development is a north American organisation concerned with the environmental aspects of sustainable development
http://www.iisd.org/

The Ecologist is a non-profit environmental magazine that covers a broad range of topics from science and technology to the impacts of globalisation.
http://www.theecologist.org/

The Indian activist, Vandana Shiva, gave a BBC Reith Lecture in 2000 on the impact of globalisation on biodiversity. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_2000/lecture5.stm