Module 7: North-South trade from a southern perspective,
ecological debt, the environmentalism of the poor
North-South trade from a southern perspective (Muradian and Martinez-Alier)
Ecological debt: carbon debt, biopiracy, environmental passive and toxic waste transportation
(RCADE - Barcelona)
Carbon debt: who owes who (Simms, Robins and Meyer)
The environmentalism of the poor (Martinez-Alier)
North-South trade from a southern perspective
win-win strategies ( welfare,  tax rev.,  env. qual.,  clean tech. imports....)
Repetto’s recommendations ( protections, barriers & subsidies, poll pays princ
Neo-classical theory
and
“Race to the bottom”
Environmental eonomics
internat. env. agreements)
unlickely to happen (env. costs only 3% of total...)
Internalize negative environmental externalities
Env. quality
GDP
Ecological economics
(in general)
NOT TRUE
Trade
Daly’s Ecological economics:
-in Ricardo’s theory factors do not move
theory of the comparative and not absolute
advanteges; “race to the bottom”
+
- WTO permission of social and
ecological dumping
=
Worries of Northern countries to lose
their comapative advantage
NOT TRUE
GDP
these correlations are not shared in EE:
-GDP is not a good measure of welfare
-environmental quality cannot  with GDP because of
irreversibility (i.e. Biodiversity) and uncertainty
-EKC hypothesis does not hold for some pollutants
(i.e.CO2) and cannot hold in other cases (irreversibility)
Southern persepctive of Ecological economics:
•“race to the bottom” is rather “stuck at the bottom”
•lacks of evidence of the staple theory of growth: “the resourceexporting sector is “delinked” from the rest of the economy”
•countries are not a good unit of analysis because:
- revenues and env. costs fall upon different sectors of the population
- corporations (TNCs) play a determinant role (transfer pricing,
no regulation of their conduct, lobbying, power inequalities...)
North-South trade from a southern perspective
Using different units of measurement produces different results. For example is the trend of Southern
exporting countries making them better or worse-off?
World Bank argues they are better off: using monetary indicators, LDCs are not specializing in heavy
polluting industries (exports are lower than imports); they are “net (monetary) importers of environmentally
intensive products”
Muradian and Martinez-Alier argue they are not: using physical indicators, they show that the reality is
different, and that they export more environmentally intensive products than what they import
Muradian and Martinez-Alier, (Fig. 1 and 2) compare using both units:
EU countries trading with LDCs import more than export in physical terms, that is, LDCs are specializing
more and more in environmentally intensive products.
Read figure 2 in this way:
For every Euro it exported, EU imported from LDCs 80 cents in 1989 and 1,10 Euro in 1997 (40% more)
For every kg it exported, EU imported from LDCs 0,2 kg in 1989 and 0,4 kg in 1997 (100% more)
Beyond showing the same results of Table 1 (price of non-renewable resources fell over time, even if demand
rose), it shows that developing cuntries are specializing in polluting industries.
North-South trade from a southern perspective
“Weighty” evidence: when flows are measured in money terms (as by the World Bank) it seems there is no
problem of unequal terms of trade but in reality, a different evidence comes out when flows are measured in
physical terms.
Lessons learnt:
World Bank uses weak sustainability criteria (= based on money) when dealing with international trade
Unequal exchange due to real life situations that differ from theoretical models on free trade*.
In real life there is a power position that Northern countries impose on Southern countries because of their
external debt. In practice it can happen with TNCs lobbying or by closeness of the local decision makers to
the interests of Northern countries rather than the interests of their people.
Was colonialism sometimes just a mean to an end that is not yet changed?
*free trade is good on a local scale and on an egaltarian distribution of power (participatory decisions)
Ecological debt: carbon debt, biopiracy, environmental
passive and toxic waste transportation
Ecological debt is a physical debt Northern countries have -but don’t pay for neither in monetary way neither
in other terms- towards Southern countires.
Carbon debt: “the disproportionate contamination of the atmosphere on behalf of the industrialized countries
because of its large emissions of gases, that have caused the deterioration of the ozone layer and the
increment of the greenhouse effect.” (See also article by Summer)
Biopiracy: biopiracy versus the value of local knowledge (Martinez Alier)
“the intellectual appropriation of the ancient knowledge related to the seeds, the medicinal use of plants and
of other plants carried out by the pharmaceuticals laboratories of the industrialized countries and by the
modern agroindustry
Environmental passive: “the extraction of natural resources, as petroleum, minerals, genetic, marine, and
forest resources for a badly paid export that does not consider the social and environmental impacts that
causes its exploitation. Besides it deteriorates the basis for the development of the affected societies.
Export of toxic waste originated in the industrialized countries and displaced in the poorest countries.
The carbon debt
External debt: South owes to North
Carbon debt: North owes to South
for HIPCs, monetary value:
$200 billion
for HIPCs, monetary calculation: $141-$612 billion (???)
IPCC: reduction by 60% in CO2 emissions to meet carrying capacity (contraction)
Kyoto process and joint implementation, but trading price is too cheap because demand is too low
How to share the quota between world population? (convergence) => different views (Appendix 1)
“equal share” “go on as we are” “what it can get and hold” “enough to get the poors alive”
Criticisms:
What price carbon? 1 ton of carbon used = $3.000 GDP generated. But it does not account for decreasing
marginal returns: if we were to reduce carbon, this would initially happen with a very low reduction in GDP,
if not with win-win scenarios where GDP actually increases (JMA pag.16). Another figure might be $10-20
per ton of Carbon reduced
GDP/welfare
Possible win-win scenario
Decreasing marginal returns of adding one
more ton of CO2 into the ecnomic system
GHGs/CO2
Are we sure climate disasters to be due to high GHGs (mainly CO2) emissions? Which science is behind?
The environmentalism of the poor
Not pricing for externalities and exhaustion of resources: ecological dumping . Economic language
Reason of this (that for the economists is not relevant): when it happens from South to North is because of
“poverty and the lack of political power of the exporting region” (pag.2). Ecological unequal exchange.
Political ecology language
•Lack of property rights, lack of power and poverty rather than lack of environmental awarness make
negative externalities not accounted for (monetary problem). Plus...
•...in a context of monocriterion application, other non-monetary units like energy, materials, irreversibility,
ecological time, religious and cultural values (that make up the total of the environmental liability) are not
accounted for.
The ecological debt...why try to monetarise it?
Question of language: western world and its institutions well understand the language of chrematistics only.
Other languages: environmental justice, environmental security.
“While humans have different price-tags they all have the same value in the scale of human dignity” (pag.14).
Different environmental perspectives.....
“environmental racism” (FACE project)
“Environmentalism is still seen, North and South, as a luxury of the rich rather than a necessity of the poor”
(pag.19) “too poor to be green” view  “eco-colonialism” (tuna-dolphin, or also “selective blindness”)
Damage valuation after Exxon Valdez, 15 times more than after Bhopal
Conditionality of North to South....but when the other way around? When North will pay for ecoloical debt?
South-South collaboration, eco-taxes, fair-trade
Risk of “too late to be green” if we wait for EKCs to happen in the South
Bibliography and websites
Muradian, R and Martinez-Alier, J.: “Trade and the environment: from a ‘Southern’ perspective” Ecol. Econ. vol 36 (2), 281 - 297
http://scienceserver.cilea.it/pdflinks/03092216003221345.pdf
Martinez-Alier, J.: “The environmentalism of the poor” (DRAFT) http://www.deudaecologica.org/cd-rcade/angles/alier.pdf
Martinez-Alier, J.: “Introduction to the indian edition of The environmentalism of the poor”
Devine, P.: Book review of “The Environmentalism of the Poor”, Environmental Values
Simms, A., Robins, N. and Meyer, R.: “Who owes who” http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/9909whoo/whoo1.htm
Martinez-Alier, J.: “The environment as a luxury good or too poor to be green?” Ecol. Econ. vol 13 (1) 1-10
http://scienceserver.cilea.it/pdflinks/03092216035522387.pdf
Daly, H.: “Globalization versus internationalization – some implications” Ecol. Econ. vol.31 (1999) 31-37
Daly, H.: “Free trade, sustainable development and growth: some serious contradictions. A review” in “Ecological economics and the
ecology of economics: essays in criticism”, chapter 15 ( in LIUC library: 333.7 DAL ECO; also available at int. rel. office for photocopies)
Leff, E.: “From ecological economics to productive ecology: perspectives on sustainable development from the South” in Costanza, R.,
Segura, O. and Martinez-Alier, J. <eds,>, 1996: “Getting down to earth : practical applications of ecological economics” (in LIUC library L
333.7 GET and also available to photocopy from the Int. Rel. Office)
Martinez-Alier, Joan: “Mining conflicts, environmental justice, and valuation” Journal of Hazardous Materials vol. 86, Issue: 1-3, September
14, 2001, pp. 153-170 http://scienceserver.cilea.it/pdflinks/03092215595121225.pdf
Muradian, R., O'Connor, M. and Martinez-Alier, J.: “Embodied pollution in trade: estimating the ‘environmental load displacement’ of
industrialised countries” Ecol. Econ. vol 41 (1) 51 - 67 http://scienceserver.cilea.it/cgibin/sciserv.pl?collection=journals&journal=09218009&issue=v41i0001&article=51_epitetldoic&form=fulltext
Martinez-Alier, J.: “Ecological Distribution Conflicts in a Context of Uncertainty” (paper presented at the ESEE conference FRONTIERS 2)
http://www.euroecolecon.org/frontiers/Contributions/F2papers/PL1-paper.pdf
Libro sobre deuda ecologica: http://www.deudaecologica.org/librodeuda.doc (excellent but in spanish)
List of various articles on Ecological debt, carbon debt and environmetal justice:http://www.deudaecologica.org/cd-rcade/articulos.htm
Carbon debt: http://www.deudaecologica.org/cd-rcade/angles/cdbet.htm
http://www.deudaecologica.org/cd-rcade/angles/Ecologist_climate_debt.htm
Environmental justice, sustainability and evaluation: http://www.ecoethics.net/hsev/200003txt.htm