Professional Documents
Culture Documents
HS 302
Pritee Sharma
December29, 2016
Environment
• Environment: why worry about
environment
• Functions of Environment
• Neoclassical economists
• Keynesians
• Yet in absolute terms China is now world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter ahead
of USA and second largest importer of oil.
• Industrial affluence and global equity cannot be attained at the same time. So
countries can opt either for affluence with oligarchy or sufficiency with view of
equity.
Unequal Appropriation of global
resources
• Goods are distributed through international trade: 25 % of world population
appropriates 75% of world’s resources.
• More than half of bauxite, Two-thirds of world nickel, and half of world’s fossil
fuels are consumed by triad of USA, Europe and Japan.
• But the rise of China or India remains far from encompassing the entire country.
Shanghai and Shenzen in China or Mumbai and Bangalore in India are rather
locations for cross-border capital formation.
Rise of transnational consumer class
• China and India alone account for 20 percent of global consumer class even though with
considerably low average income. The consumer class represents 19 % of China’s
Population, 33% of Brazil’s population, 43% in Russia, and 89% of Western Europe. You can
figure out the growth potential in these countries.
• Three types of resource-intensive consumer goods : meat consumption, electrical
equipment and motor vehicles (exploiting energy, materials and land area).
Environmentalism and Economic Liberalization
• 1972 Stockholm Conference on Human • 1945 Bretton Woods (United Nations Monetary and
Environment UNCHE Financial Conference (US- Reagan and UK Thatcher
governments) set up IBRD, GATT and IMF
• 1980 World Conservation Strategy of IUCN
(International Union for the Conservation of • 1947 General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs
Nature) GATT…1990s (Dunkel’s draft to Parallel Regional
Trade Agreements- NAFTA, ASEAN, SAARC etc.)
• 1983 Brundtland Commission WCED (World
Commission on Environment and Development) • 1995 World Trade Organization (WTO)
• 1987 Publication of “Our Common Future” • Conflicts on role of the World Bank in developing
countries- growth and environmental degradation-
• 1992 Earth Summit at Rio-de-Janiero (2nd UN Brundtland Commission- Sustainable Development.
Conference on Env. And Development) UNCED