Globalisation's Direct and Indirect Effects on the Environment

This chapter explores research into the relationship between globalisation and the environment, looking at patterns and rates of growth in international trade and foreign direct investment. It provides a summary of knowledge of globalisation’s indirect effects, focusing largely on current estimates of the size of the scale, composition and technique effects of globalisation. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the various direct effects of globalisation, notably transport-related emissions and biological invasions, and attempts to put these into the broader context of overall effects. The chapter concludes that, although recent evidence concerning trade and local pollution is encouraging, the evidence concerning carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions is less so. One explanation for the pessimistic assessments of trade’s impact on greenhouse gas emissions is their global nature. Not only are the costs of CO2 emissions shared with citizens abroad (who have no political voice outside their own country), but many greenhouse emissions are associated with fossil fuel use, for which few economically viable substitutes have emerged to date. The income and technique effects that are largely responsible for reductions in local air pollutants do not seem to have the same force when the pollutant in question burdens the global population.