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Rich countries grow at ecological expense of poor countries mongabay.com January 21, 2008
Tallying the environmental costs of climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, agricultural intensification and expansion, deforestation, overfishing, and mangrove conversion from human activities over 1961-2000, University of California Berkeley researchers led by Pacific Ecoinformatics lab scientist Dr. Thara Srinivasan found total damages ranged up to $47 trillion in net present value. More importantly, Srinivasan and colleagues show that environmental damages like climate change and ozone depletion have been "overwhelmingly driven" by emissions from middle- and high-income groups, but the impacts are disproportionately borne by low-income nations.
Noting that the 'ecological debt' of low-income countries often amounts to a greater financial burden than their foreign debt, the authors argue that ecological costs should be given more consideration when evaluating economic growth. "In a world increasingly connected ecologically and economically, our analysis is thus an early step toward reframing issues of environmental responsibility, development, and globalization in accordance with ecological costs," the authors write. "With pressure on ecosystem services expected to intensify in the next half-century, the framework and results described here may contribute to an emerging discussion of the distribution of ecological drivers and impacts, and the relationship of these issues with the responsibilities and debts between nations." Srinivasan, U.T. et al. (2008). The debt of nations and the distribution of ecological impacts from human activities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Online Early Edition for the week of January 21-25, 2008
Tags: economics environmental economics politics ozone layer environment pollution impact of climate change deforestation overfishing mangroves green News index | RSS | News Feed | Twitter | Home Advertisements: Organic Apparel from Patagonia | Insect-repelling clothing
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