Positive trends in tackling global environmental issues
The international economic crisis is not making it any easier to achieve environmental goals, but things are not all doom and gloom. The newly updated edition of ‘A handbook of globalisation and environmental policy’ details both the positive and the negative effects of globalization on environmental protection. The book’s editors include Tilburg scientists Kees Zoetman and Paul van Seters.
When it comes to environmental policy, globalization is not necessarily leading to the ‘race to the bottom’ that some may have feared, according to the new handbook for policy makers and other experts in global environmental policy. Granted, the book includes plenty of examples of the negative effects of globalization, such as countries who rely on their relatively lax environmental policy to attract companies to locate there. But at the same time a ‘race to the top’ is going on. Multinationals are following stricter self-imposed environmental standards, for example, partly in order to enhance their public image but also in order to realize economies of scale and improve profits.
Public-private cooperation
There has also been a remarkable proliferation of partnerships and networks involving companies and NGOs which are improving the way that global environmental issues are tackled. Pieter Glasbergen (of Utrecht University) discusses the implications of this development in this new edition, while Jonathan Verschuuren (Tilburg University) provides a legal analysis.
There is also growing recognition of the need to align economic interests more closely with environmental interests at a global level. In the short term, the most promising course of action in this respect would appear to be a wider mandate for the World Trade Organization, says the handbook. In the longer term, however, the involvement of a newly established global organization may be a more suitable means of achieving this. In the handbook, Daniel Esty and Maria Ivanova (of Yale University) propose the World Environment Mechanism to achieve this.
Frank Wijen, Kees Zoeteman, Jan Pieters and Paul van Seters (2012): 'A Handbook of Globalisation and Environmental Policy, Second Edition. National Government Interventions in a Global Arena'. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Global / English