Globalization and the Environment: Greening Global Political Economy

7. Conclusion

127 Chapter 7 Conclusion This book has looked at the various perspectives relating to environment and society and the global political economy and has advocated shifting the focus of mainstream analysis to include a new concept of environment-society relations based on a different historical interpretation of the origins of environmental degradation. At the same time, an eco-holistic political economy approach, as indeed any critical political economy approach, needs to include an understanding of the institutions of consumption and equity in order to offer holistic analysis. The increasing gulf between North and South, which cannot only be analyzed through the typical class or other inequality channels, is the most visible manifestation of the relevance of a consumption and equity focused analysis. As a general rule, the messier, unreliable, and basic aspects of production are located in the South while consumption of goods takes place in the North (this statement ignores resource extraction as an industry for which other rules apply). Thus, this new North-South divide leads to an everincreasing inequality that goes far beyond the structural imbalances found, for example, under colonialism. It is also supported by an international institutional framework that is geared toward keeping the status quo in this production -consumption dichotomy despite paying lip service to the abolition of these inequalities. STRUCTURAL CONSTRAINTS IN PRACTICE This section is concerned with the way in which policy can be used to affect the problem areas discussed in this book. It will first outline the parameters of the liberal institutionalism that underlies the existing policy framework and identify possible areas for change. This section will identify the arena within which managerial approaches are located and management solutions are offered and extend from that basis. 128 Globalization and the Environment Starting with the issue of consumption, this approach does not form the basis of any existing institutional framework. However, the organization of production is very much institutionalized and within this framework consumption is seen as a natural extension of the production framework. This production framework has several dimensions that are comprised of a global division of labor, a trade liberalization movement, a global financial framework facilitating the free movement of capital as well as a lack of social, welfare, and environmental regulations built into the economic framework. These regulations are usually organized along separate lines and the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework has now made it clear that these regulations will have to be subordinated to the global trade framework even if prior international law on the subject existed. There is even an institutional framework for intellectual property rights that organizes the production and use of knowledge at the global level (Thomas, 2000: 72). All these aspects of the global production, or economic, framework are set up on the basis of liberal economic thought as well as neoliberal market efficiency ideas. From this perspective, consumption is just a supply and demand variable. Likewise, environmental and social considerations are marginalized because they cannot be included in the particular type of rationality underlying the production framework. This type of market efficiency that is focused on production and price mechanism and sees solutions as a pricing and efficiency issue, cannot take on board issues of consumption equity and distribution of wealth. It is based on accumulation of wealth ideas and cannot incorporate into its analytical framework the notion of structural inequality. As the structure of the economic or production framework in itself forbids the transfer of structural advantage and argues that entrepreneurship can lead to wealth accumulation, the structural basis of the distribution of resources is not addressed. With consumption being an equity policy issue, this problem could not be denied, however. The same applies to the other issue areas treated here. The second issue is focused on nature-society or environment-society relations. Environment-society relations take place at various levels and thus are part of various institutional frameworks. However, in general they are organized along separate lines from other forms of social organization. The most obvious form of environmental policy framework can be found in the negotiation and putting into place of multilateral or international environmental agreements. These are on various issues, usually organized around a singleissue basis. So there are agreements on global warming, acid rain, marine pollution, or ozone depletion to name but a very few but these are not connected (or only peripherally) to the issues giving rise to the pollution in the first place. Again, there is a feasibility-necessity dichotomy as these...