In this post, I will be looking deeper into how the Global South bears much of the pollution burden due to the unequal ecological exchange. I think it is worth exploring the concept of unequal ecological exchange in contrast to the widely used traditional classical economics as the latter often (Roberts & Parks, 2009).

(1) only looks at equality in terms of monetary exchange between countries

(2) ignores the usually unequal material exchange of international trade flows

So what exactly is unequal ecological exchange?

As the name suggests, unequal ecological exchange refers to how biophysical resources such as materials, energy, land, and labor are asymmetrically transferred from the periphery countries to the core countries (Dorninger et al., 2020). According to World Systems Theory, core countries are those that manufacture value-added secondary goods and sold to semi-periphery and periphery countries (Mutsaers, 2015). On the other hand, periphery countries are countries that provide biophysical resources for core and semi-periphery countries (Mutsaers, 2015). Semi-periphery is a combination of both core and periphery countries (Mutsaers, 2015). In other words, the core countries rely on the extraction of biophysical resources from the periphery and semi-periphery countries in order to gain capital (Dorninger et al., 2020).

Picture description: Illustration of World Systems Theory Model (Source)

 

As mentioned earlier, trade exchange is seems like it is done at a fair monetary price. However, the core countries usually get large volumes of biophysical resources at prices that did not reflect the true value of social and environmental costs from peripheral countries (Roberts & Parks, 2009). The material flow analysis reveals that core economies are draining the ecological capacity of peripherical countries by extracting resources and also exporting waste, leading to an unrecorded ecological loss in peripherical countries (Roberts & Parks, 2009).

On top of revealing global inequality in terms of material flows, the World Systems Theory explains how the global economy is very much based on European colonial capitalism (Gonzalez, 2015). According to Gonzalez (2015), colonialism universalized European concept of nature as a product for human exploitation and created a system where the core countries (previous colonial states) could prosper by extracting resources from periphery countries (previous colonized states).The unequal ecological exchange thus reveals how inequality faced by the global South (made up of periphery and semi-periphery countries) is very rooted in postcolonial forces (Gonzalez, 2015).

All in all, I feel that this concept is helpful in building a perspective on disribution of global pollution through the understanding of the historical and political forces. However, one drawback is that there is not much research done in this area and not enough empirical evidence to support this concept (Dorninger et al., 2020). How about you? Do you feel that unequal ecological exchange sufficiently justifies the greater pollution burden faced by poorer periphery countries from the global South? Why or why not?

With that food for thought, I will see you in the next post!

Komal

 

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References:

Dorninger, C., Hornborg, A., Abson, D. J., von Wehrden, H., Schaffartzik, A., Giljum, S., Engler, J.-O., Feller, R. L., Hubacek, K., & Wieland, H. (2020). Global patterns of ecologically unequal exchange: Implications for sustainability in the 21st Century. Ecological Economics, 179, 106824. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106824

Mutsaers, J. (2015). Environmental concern in global perspective: Exploring relations between core-periphery, vulnerability, environmental problems, post-materialism and environmental concern. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.1371.2481.

Roberts, J. T., & Parks, B. C. (2009). Ecologically Unequal Exchange, Ecological Debt, and Climate Justice: The History and Implications of Three Related Ideas for a New Social Movement. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 50(3–4), 385–409. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020715209105147