All countries without exception are interlinked and interdependent in the global market place. This reality became starkly evident in the early days of this pandemic when more and more countries closed their borders, resulting in interruptions in supply chains that caused many factories to grind to a halt. Many countries had also outsourced the manufacture their own PPEs, and during border closures and lockdowns struggled to obtain enough PPEs to keep their populations and healthcare professionals safe. Indeed, most of what we consume is manufactured elsewhere, where the costs of production are considerably lower. Outsourcing production not only results in huge savings in labour costs; it also evades the much stricter environmental standards, workers rights, and workplace safety standards in place in much wealthier consumer nations. The raw materials and energy required for manufacture are also sourced from countries all over the world, from whichever country can supply the demand at the lowest cost. Almost every good we consume, from cell phones to clothes to automobiles to food, involves the coordinated actions of a complex global web of people from many countries around the world. Restrictions on the movement of goods and services are minimal, and efforts are being made to further reduce them through minimizing government intervention –through the promotion of what is called Free Trade. The remarkable thing is that for the most part it is self-regulating. For middle class and upper middle class this system has been working well, providing them with an ever increasing array of consumer goods at affordable prices. They most anxiously await the full recovery of this economic system in the wake of disruptions caused by the pandemic.
But can a self-regulating system, characterized by minimal government intervention, respond to that other even greater existential crisis –to global warming? Is it simply a matter of switching over to renewable energy so that economic growth can continue unabated without destroying the planet? Is national governments' “putting a price on pollution” and setting carbon emission reduction targets going to be enough? To date even significantly reducing carbon emissions within our borders has proved to be a challenge, especially for countries whose economies rely on the extraction and exportation of fossil fuels. Should countries and corporations be allowed to exempt themselves from lower emission requirements in exchange for buying up carbon syncs that presumably offset their emissions? (forests etc. known to sequester carbon) Externalizing production costs has become essential to compete in the global marketplace; only by outsourcing production to countries with grossly underpaid workers, often working in abysmal conditions, in countries with minimal or unenforced labour and environmental standards, can suppliers supply the insatiable appetites of consumers at competitive prices. The social and environmental costs will be borne by others in the countries that produce the goods we consume.
But due to the global nature of the climate crisis the cost of carbon emissions cannot be externalized. Reduction in global carbon emissions cannot be achieved without the cooperation of all the countries that supply the world's consumer goods. The refrain that “We are all in this together”, belied by the global distribution of vaccines, has to become much more than a euphemism if the worsening of the global climate apocalypse is to be avoided. Even countries that have managed to meet national carbon emissions targets within their borders are not doing their part if they continue to import consumer goods with a high carbon footprint. Emissions must be reduced everywhere in the chain of the production process, from the extraction and shipping of raw materials, to the processing of materials into metals, plastics, etc., to the fabrication and assembly of all components into the end products, and the shipping of all of the above. That's a lot of emissions that aren't accounted for in consumer prices, but nonetheless form part and parcel of emissions embodied in the goods we consume. To continue this pattern of consumption is to continue to participate in ecocide and self-annihilation, regardless of how many EVs we buy or solar panels we install.
Can developing and newly industrialized countries be relied upon to voluntarily reduce their emissions in a way that not even most wealthy countries have thus far been willing to do? Can those stitching our clothes together, or working long hours in unsafe working conditions, earning a pittance insufficient to properly house or feed themselves, be expected set aside all immediate existential threats to themselves and their families and get on board with the climate agenda of a few rich nations? If they are not, will we encourage them by financing their transition to green energy? Or will we resort to some form of coercion? Without a pan-global government, who would do the coercing? The under-funded UN, in which five countries who almost never agree on anything have veto power, is not up to the task, much less the WHO, whose pleas for a more equitable distribution of vaccines continue to fall on deaf ears. If rich countries were to put tariffs on all goods imported from non-compliant countries, would that result in reduced emissions? Or would that only result in even more deplorable working conditions as suppliers try to keep up profits despite tariffs? What about an outright ban on such imports? But that would hurt compliant rich countries as well, because they would have to pay the full cost of production of consumer goods. All the externalized costs –the cheap labour, the lax or poor worker safety and environmental laws, etc. that made these imported goods so affordable--would then have to be added to the sales price. Citizens of rich nations would have to absorb, not only the costs of reducing their own emissions, but also the higher consumer prices required to pay for the transition to green energy in the countries producing these goods, resulting in inflation. Perhaps that is as it should be, since it is the citizens of rich nations that, because of their high levels of consumption, are primarily responsible for global warming. When we moved industry off shore we also moved their carbon emissions off shore, out of our national jurisdiction, but they still take place on the same planet. It is urgent that we take ownership of all emissions associated with the products we consume, including those being produced offshore.
To date even most relatively wealthy countries haven't done much to reduce emissions, despite the devastating impact of increasingly frequent extreme weather events. There are a number of reasons for this. Rich countries can deal with catastrophic weather events, and are becoming increasing adept at preventing economic, political and climate refugees from entering their countries. Ironically the high costs of dealing with emergency responses and the rebuilding required after a fire, flood, hurricane or other extreme weather event register as being of net-benefit to the country in the accounting. The billions of dollars in expenditures such events require all contribute to the GDP and therefore register as economic growth. A few good storms or fires or floods can boost economic growth, while climate action –shuttering all fossil fuel and related industries—detracts from economic growth. As long as the economy is in the driver's seat, in the short term governments are more likely to choose coping with climate change and extreme weather events over the slow almost imperceptible benefits of reduction of global warming in the longer term –a far longer term than the term in office of any elected government. Even when more and more of the general population is citing climate change as the number one issue facing us today, governments are slow to take action. Even political parties who include concern about carbon emissions in their election platforms are only addressing domestic emissions; they do not have a plan for getting poor and newly industrialized nations on board. They make no mention of the carbon emissions embodied in all the imported goods we consume. They do not acknowledge that the economy and perpetual economic growth can no longer remain in the drivers seat if we are to avert a complete climate apocalypse. Not nationally, not globally. Up until now we have left the allocation and use of resources to the algorithm of supply and demand, in which suppliers competed with each other to supply demand until equilibrium was reached. Now we need to suppress our inclination to compete and replace it with an inclination to cooperate. Unless a spirit of cooperation occupies the drivers seat we are doomed. That transition could prove to be an even more formidable obstacle to climate action than does the transition to renewable energy sources. But we better get on with it, because time is running out, and without regime change we have no future.
