Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Developing countries frequently do not have sufficient resources to avoid illegal
logging so they should be paid to stop further deforestation, according to the
Rainforest Coalition led by Papua New Guinea, by being allowed to sell carbon
offsets for new forest planting. Stiglitz (2006) also believes that although global
corporations frequently facilitate technology transfers, raise skill standards and develop
markets that do help developing countries, their primary purpose to make money
is clearly articulated by their fiduciary relationship to their stockholders. Consequently,
to counteract the harmful effects of corporate actions Stiglitz believes that it is neces-
sary to reshape private incentives with social costs and benefits to avoid environmental
destruction and labour exploitation. This can be achieved through:
•
A combination of corporate social responsibility supplemented by stronger
regulations to prevent unfair competition.
•
Limitation of corporate power through the implementation effective global anti-
trust laws.
•
Better corporate governance whereby companies are held accountable to all
stakeholders - employees and communities as well as shareholders - making
environmental destruction a crime just like fraud and embezzlement.
•
International laws should be enacted against price fixing and labour exploitation.
•
Reducing the scope for corruption, with bribery being viewed as an unfair
competitive practice and bank secrecy eradicated so as to prevent the incentive
to, or possibility of enhancing after-tax profits garnered from questionable business
practices.
Stiglitz's time at the World Bank did see some changes with development priorities
being refocused on poverty reduction, partnership and the creation of 'good policy
environments' rather than simply economic growth. Despite these changes, limiting
conditions on development loans remain, constraining the possibilities of developing
nations to 'own' the preferred development policy (Pender, 2001).
Anti-globalization critiques
Activists and campaigners like Greg Buckman (2004), Vandana Shiva (2000), Walden
Bello (2002) and George Monbiot (2004) criticize existing global institutions and
internal trading systems. Their views have informed some of the more radical
approaches to sustainability and sustainable development. They advocate alternatives
that have a different value base, offering different sets of prescriptions and types of
knowledge than that currently characterizing the dominant
neoliberal
discourse
of economic growth, development and globalization. For Wolfgang Sachs (1999) of
the Wuppertal Institute for Climate Environment and Energy, the costs and benefits
of economic globalization have not been equitably globalized and nature has itself
been colonized through the 1994 TRIPS (Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights)
agreement that gives corporations the right to patent genetic materials such as micro-
organisms, seeds and even cells. This has helped 'modernize' agriculture, reinforcing
the commercial advantages of growing cash crops in the developing world for markets
in developed countries, and has effectively stolen the harvests and livelihoods of
many local farmers in India and other nations (Shiva, 2000). For Bello (2002),
founding director of Focus on the Global South, the IMF and the World Bank have
