Discussion piece: Does the Environmental Kuznets Curve exist? The case of carbon emissions in Indonesia, China, Australia, and United States.
The Kuznets curve is firstly introduced in 1955 by Kuznets as an inverted-U relationship between income inequality and economic development. Later it is found that the Kuznets curve is useful for describing the relationship between environmental pressure and the economic growth or known as the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) (Dinda, 2004). The hypothesis of the EKC is that at early stages of a country’s development, the quality of its environment will be deteriorated faster and getting slow down at some level of income per capita that the economic growth support the increasing of environmental performance (Stern, 2004). The EKC applies differently between countries depend on the economic growth status of the country. This essay will discuss the different appearance of the EKC using the evidences from developing and developed countries. The EKC of developing countries will show the upward slope stage of the curve because of the countries’ focus on economic growth and less protection to the environment. Conversely, the developed countries will show the later downward slope stage of the EKC as their economic growth is already high and there is more attention for environmental protection. Figure 1 The Environmental Kuznets Curve
Comparation of the EKC appearances between Indonesia, Australia, and United States
The EKC of Indonesia,
Throughout chapter 2 and 3, Schor condemns the notion of BAU growth and a higher GDP. She presents an “Ecological Footprint, Carbon Footprint, and Biocapacity” on page 60, and breaks down the basis of the “Environmental Kuznet Curve (EKC)” on page 73-75. Through the analysis of these figures, she
My propose of writing this paper is to examine the current rate of climate change and its negative impacts, therefore, explaining why changes need to be made in the environmental governance for the betterment. This essay will answer the question that do changes in the environmental law effect the economic growth of the country? And if so is the implementation of environmental law still important.
An unfathomable number of planets, but only one Earth; one us. CO₂ is a naturally occurring gas, however, emissions in Canada have continually risen, from 591 megatons (Mt) in 1990 to a full 18% increase to 699 Mt by 2012 (Environmental Canada). The dramatic rise in existing levels is directly connected to human-related activities, with roughly 80% due to the burning of fossil fuels (Canada’s Action on Climate Change). When split into five equal quintiles according to income, the estimated emission production for the top quintile is around 20% over the calculated average of all five quintiles (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives [CCPA]). As well, it has been calculated that when analyzing gender, men contribute considerably larger
Developing countries tend to have “the most fragile environments” (Baker 197) which is due to the flow of resources dictated by the core. The core, taking advantage of the developmental level developing countries are on, exploit their lack of laws restraining harm to the environment, setting up factories causing even more environmental damage. Thus when comparing the environmental status of a developed country to a developing country there are major differences. These differences are the interaction of the people with the environment, in terms of needs, and the number of factories profiteering from the use and exploitation of natural resources. When this difference is identified then it is easier to assess not only the source but also to create laws prohibiting this exploitation and constructing programs to reverse environmental damages to specific circumstances, helping developing countries to move forward on the developmental scale instead of backwards. If this is taken into account then why is the source causing environmental damage, the core, not stopped? This is due to the dominant ideology stating that with infinite economic growth, eventually the sustainability of the environment will be achieved. The developing countries reinforces this by inviting and encouraging organizations to base their factories in their country which has immediate results, creating a smoke screen
Countries around the world have agreed that to avoid potentially dangerous climate change, global warming stay below 2 degrees C. This means that every country, including Australia will need to significantly increase their efforts to reduce emissions. Currently, Australia’s per capita emissions are among the highest in the world, however, there has been recent progress in decarbonising its economy. For example, greenhouse gas emissions have remained stable while economy size has almost doubled. (Pathways to deep carbonisation).
Limiting emissions requires broad-based action across many sectors of the global economy. Australia’s air temperature has risen 0.9°C since 1910, illustrating the Global Warming due to the emissions of greenhouse gases. Australia has numerous initiatives that provide its population with tips on how to help the environment. Unlike many industrialized nations Australia is still heavily reliant on Non Renewable Resources such as coal. Australia and Japan have both signed the Kyoto Agreement which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Japan signed it in 2002, whereas Australia signed it in 2007. The time of which both countries signed, illustrates that Japan was more acceptable and ready for such a scheme and to do something about greenhouse gases. Japan was ranked 12th out of 176 countries in a 2013 Global Sustainable Competitiveness Index. Japan ranked 4th in Sustainable innovations which entails providing quality education, cultivating research and development, creating globally competitive products and services, and providing jobs and income for the population of a country recognised as environmentally sustainable. Although Japan has achieved this position, the country has a substantial amount of air pollution from power plant emissions which results in acid rain. The acidification of rain damages lakes and reservoirs whilst degrading water quality and threatening aquatic life.
Two decades later, G.M. Grossman and A.B. Krueger conducted a separate study in which they found a similar relationship between environmental quality and per capita income. They discovered that in the
While industrialization has been strongly associated with greenhouse gas emissions, it is premature, however, to conclude that economic growth is the independent factor responsible to climate change. Neumayer (1998) contended that there is no sound scientific evidence documenting consequences of economic development on the environmental degradation in the long term (p. 4). There is also no linear association between economic growth and environmental deterioration, as maintained by Ferguson et al. (1996, p. 28) that the existing evidence “cannot be used to justify a view that economic growth (…) will automatically be good or bad for the environment” (cited in Neumayer 1998, p. 16).
One of China’s best successes has in turn been one of its biggest downfalls. One of the main problems is China’s greatest success which has been its phenomenal economic growth. This is one of the main drivers of the current environmental problems that the country faces. Factories dump pollutants into the air and water. It is difficult to see the Chinese government making the significant sacrifices required to improve their environment if it means slowing down their economic growth.
EKC refer to changes over time that occurs in one country. The best way to test these hypotheses is to examine the economic growth for years and examine what took place in that country with respect to their particular environment. However even this method is insufficient and thus, the ability to import products from other countries lead in fact to pollution's export and other environmental impacts to the host country (XX).
The poverty-environmental linkage has several dimensions. From an economic growth perspective; rapid economic growth is often seen as the key foundation for achieving poverty reduction. There is a lot empirical evidence in support of this assertion. Therefore while the linkage between economic growth and poverty reduction is generally obvious, the relationship between economic growth and degradation of the environment or and improvement in the environment remains ambiguous or unclear. One part of the poverty-environment hypothesis suggests that economic growth is needed to break the poverty-environment downward
In the past, the economic school of thought regarded the resources as unlimited and focused on more production under the light of the unlimited growth assumption. Every economic action was suggested to only consider about making more profit. While the economy and the human population are growing; more natural resources are used and more pollution is observed. Human become to deal with the results of its production such as environmental problems and resource scarcity. A debate has emerged in economics and the mainstream economics is brought into question since its unlimited growth assumption is collapsed. Ecological economists argue the neoclassical welfare economics for ignoring the environmental and ethic values by only focusing on the cost-benefit analysis. It also claims that the neoclassical economics fails to calculate the value of the environmental capital and the loss of the economic activities on the environment. This paper is going to explain the problems with the neoclassical welfare economics and the alternatives offered by the ecological economics in terms of economic growth and environment.
Estimating future emissions is difficult, because it depends on demographic, economic, technological, policy, and institutional developments. Several emissions scenarios have been developed based on differing projections of these underlying factors. For example, by 2100, in the absence of emissions control policies, carbon dioxide concentrations are projected to be
While elements of this system are problematic, spending on development is positive on the whole. Due to development, “sleepy rural towns” have “transformed into major cities,” leading to a “growing Chinese middle class” of white-collar urban workers. Although economic growth has widened income inequality, it has “raised the living standards of most of the population dramatically” and lifted more than 500 million Chinese citizens out of poverty. Additionally, some economists believe that development may lead to equality in the long term. They propose that China’s development follows a Kuznets curve whereby “growth results in
Development processes is connected with environmental degradation and use of natural resources. Rudel et al. (2011) assumes the present of two distinct waves of development power which control environment. The first wave of political economy deals with the power of capitalism as the main agent for environmental degradation, while the second wave concern with the social power (community) to control the use of natural resources.