Globalization and the Environment

A recent New York Times article “Environmental Cost of Shipping Groceries Around the World” sparked my interest because it combines the issues of globalization and international affairs in relation to environment.

The article speaks of the year-long availability of various produce due to production expansion from one specialized region to many areas around the world—kiwis, for example, are produced in larger quantities by Italy than by New Zealand, which is where the fruit originated—and the outsourcing of food processing plants to low-wage countries, all of which have a significant impact on the environment by adding pollution caused by long-distance transportation. Recently, there has been a movement towards charging a transportation tax for cross-country food transportation in order to “offset the current calculus that transporting freight is cheaper than producing goods locally”, but many fear that this is merely a pretense for protectionist taxation and restriction of free trade. Calculating the carbon footprint will prove to be difficult, for factors such as the pollution caused by storing locally produced produce partially offset the reduction in fuel emissions. As a compromise, Tesco, Britain’s largest supermarket chain, hopes to add labels to all of their products signaling its carbon footprint so customers can make choices themselves.

This issue crosses so many lines of international relations: global business and the expectations of the cosmopolitan consumer, international politics and free trade. The credible commitment issue here is clear: if one country decides to tax imports and others don’t, the other countries will gain a comparative advantage by gaining a greater likelihood of importation. If anything, collective action is necessary to produce results, but since the actual environmental benefits of limiting transportation is hard to quantify, it is unlikely that countries will agree upon a policy anytime soon. Additionally, taxation limits free trade, which causes many to oppose such a proposition, especially in this day of increased economic interdependence and the Western norm of free trade. Many developing countries depend on this global chain of grocery supply, such as the plant in China that processes cod caught in Norway into filets and then sends the finished product right back where it came from. For consumers, this process means cheaper goods and greater variety year-round; companies hesitate to edit consumer preferences and would rather rise to meet them for the profit even if that has negative environmental consequences. The fact that business has surpassed the nation-state as an institution is intriguing, and the process of compromising between national interests, international business, and supranational concerns for the environment is a new concept without true precedents or norms in place and will be a long and hard-fought battle in the future.