IAH 204 Lecture Notes - Lecture 34: Ozone Depletion, Economic Globalization, Developing Country
18 Jul 2019
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Document Summary
There is an inequitable distribution of environmental hazards around the world. The rise of economic globalization, marked by liberalized trade rules and the dominance of multinational corporations, has played a key role in shifting environmental pollution from industrialized to developing countries. This shift can be seen most prominently in the export of polluting industries and hazardous wastes from developed countries to poor, developing countries in africa, south america, and asia. Weak environmental regulations and lax enforcement of laws foster this shift, supported by trade rules that force developing countries to make trade-offs between environmental protection and economic prosperity. Despite attempts to regulate the international waste trade by treaty, illegal exportation of hazardous wastes to developing countries continues to flourish. In addition, the negative effects of widely recognized environmental degradation (ozone depletion, climate change, declining biodiversity, deforestation) are disproportionately borne by developing countries and poor populations across the globe.
