The 2030 Sustainable Development agenda recognizes international trade as a key, cross-cutting tool to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and especially, SDG 8: “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all”. Although the total value of world trade has stagnated in the past couple of years, international trade enjoyed an unprecedented growth in the years between 1980 and 2015, which have been defined as the age of globalization. The age of globalization has been accompanied by high levels of economic growth and a dramatic decline in the poverty rate across the planet, whose level is today by far the lowest in history. According to World Bank data, the percentage …show more content…
Sustainable trade can facilitate the transition to a green economy by fostering the exchange of environmentally-friendly goods and technologies and increasing resource efficiency. This in turn would generate economic opportunities and employment, which would have the potential to reduce inequalities and the poverty rate even further. At the same time, the transition to a green economy would create additional trade opportunities by opening up new export markets for environmental goods and services, and through the trading of certified “green” products. But such transition will not happen in a vacuum. Just as the manufacturing workers who lost their jobs in developed countries could be helped using increased fiscal revenues to fund retraining programs that provide them with the skills that the new productive structure demand, firms – especially SMEs in developing countries – will need external support and capacity building to obtain the technology and know-how required to upgrade the production methods to meet sustainability standards. This includes technical assistance programs to increase the understanding and compliance of green certification standards. Additionally capacity building is needed so that governments can be better equipped to design policies that mitigate the adverse impact of trade, and that promote sustainable consumption and
The development of free trade has become more controversial since the end of the Second World War due to rising openness to other countries and cultures. In terms of trade, globalization refers to 'as increasingly borderless trade that develops between countries and territories or countries and countries' (Archana, 2015). Along with the growing inter-connectedness of the world, the liberalization of trade policies has favored globalization amongst many countries and has led to an introduction of new agreements such as trade blocs in which several countries make an agreement to eliminate protectionist measures such as tariffs and quotas to facilitate the flow of goods and services. Easier transportation of goods and services across borders has reduced unnecessary costs which made the cost of goods themselves cheaper and more accessible. NAFTA is a good example of the situation where several countries agree to a partnership that makes imports and exports less costly.
Ultimately, major decisions on resource depletion and pollution have to be made by individuals. Scientific experts help the government and public to understand the importance of protecting the environment. On their part, government experts help in passing relevant laws, which commit all stakeholders into the environmental conservation efforts. Government experts also play a critical role in intervening to provide remedies in situations of environmental pollution. For example, the government can provide alternative sources of energy so that people do not cut trees to use as
In the contemporary society, there are an increasing number of people involved in the globalisation. I choose the topic of international trade. And in the following paragraphs, I am going to introduce what is international trade, other possible benefits of trading globally and the bottom line. (Heakal 2015) Thanks to the international trade that allows us to expand the market for goods and services.
3. Globalization Throughout the last decades, globalization became a real phenomenon, but history tells us that it is actually not a new social, historical phenomena, but has, under different names and manifestations, been with us for a long time. It is actually not only the continuation of the liberalization of international trade, which began in the mid-19th century with the launch of cross-border trade over long distances and later with intensive large-scale mobility of labor and capital. During capitalism, globalization has amplified due to the lust for profit, which is driven by capitalists across the globe. Indeed, globalization has significantly strengthened ever since.
Introduction In today’s world, most developing countries are in a race to build up the necessary infrastructure to scale up there operations and become the next global superpower. In this process, a lot of energy is consumed – be it for transportation, manufacturing or construction. This rapid growth of energy use seen over the past two decades have raised concerns for governments and energy-related organizations alike. Questions with regard to the supply, sustainability and exhaustion of energy sources abound, and while most developed countries have taken active steps to reduce consumption of scarce resources, the position of developing countries in this regard is still lacking.
Companies should think about less polluting products and production processes for
Firms which are managing environmental affairs their relations with consumers, vendors, regulators, and other industries are increasing and improving their sustainability to the success. The environmental strategies include developing green business, divesting environmental-damaging business, Struggle to become low cost producer, through energy conservation and waste minimization, and implementing different strategy through green product features. The firms can include environmental representative in their board of directors, announce bonus for the favorable environmental results, establish environmental oriented objectives, include environmental values in mission statements, and provide environmental training program for firm managers and employees. WHY FIRMS SHOULD “BE GREEN”
1. Introduction: Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the important green house gases (GHGs) emitted in the atmosphere through various human and natural activities. The human activities include rapid industrialization and urbanization, deforestation, excessive use of fertilizers in agriculture, excessive use of fuels, papers and many other manmade resources whereas natural activities include volcano eruption, forest fires, earthquakes etc. Emission of GHGs in the atmosphere leads to global warming which is one of the primary reasons behind the atmospheric changes that affect the human life directly or indirectly. The consequences of global warming are extremely harsh seasons, untimely rains, extended summers and floods that results in human deaths, destruction of flora and fauna in addition to the huge economical losses.
Sustainability: If you take a look around at what’s really happening in our world, there’s an inescapable pattern of ‘what’s going on is simply unsustainable’ and in other words, it can’t go on for much longer. Sustainability is to “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. As cities began to grow with the population increase, the need for a sustainable development became more apparent as resources began to diminish in quantity and value. Left to it’s own devices, the Earth is a sustainable system.
Following the industrial revolution, it took industrialized countries more than 200 years to establish a living standard under which an environmental movement could emerge. Furthermore, the gap worldwide between the rich and the poor is widening (OECD, 2015). As a reaction, the growing population from developing countries understandably demands equitable living conditions compared to citizens in Europe or the United States. However, establishing higher standards of living is opposed to concentrating efforts on reducing emissions. As a result there will be decades of ever-increasing GHGs globally, currently primarily caused by developed countries and by developing countries in the
As the result of my experience this semester I can conclude that this experience was a life changing experience. The way I viewed things in the past about the environment has changed. In the past I was not aware of the importance of living a more sustainable life. Also, how protecting our environment is one of the today’s most serious issues. Some of issues and information that I learned throughout this semester was the web life, food web, overpopulation, mutualism & commensalism, climate change, pollution, rainforest & sea destruction, and the extinction of many animals and plants.
Global Environment Problems Global environment can be defined as the environment about our nature and the surroundings that influence worldwide scale an environment could be a desert or polar land. Environment problems: Our environment constantly changing. There is no denying that, However, as our environment changes, so does the need to become increasingly aware of the problems that surround it. With a massive influx of natural disasters, warming and cooling periods, different types of weather patterns and much more, people need to be aware of what types of environmental problems our planet is facing.
According to the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) “A green economy is one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. In its simplest expression, a green economy can be thought of as one, which is low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive. ” This states that green economies are not based on demand for sacrifice, but on the idea of qualitative growth, where low-carbon and environment friendly technologies are utilized as well as international cooperation plays a key
Economic globalization refers to the free movement of goods, capital, services, technology and information around the world. Since the 1990s, due to the improvement of advanced communication technologies and the rapid expansion of multinational corporations, economic globalization has become an important trend of the world economic development. This trend not only provides a broader space for international markets for all countries, but also aggravates the competition among countries for market and resources. Economic globalization is an inevitable result of the development that no country can evade. In this paper, we will discuss that economic globalization is beneficial or not to developing countries.
Sustainable development, as its name suggests, is a concept continually elaborating. The most commonly used definition, according to World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), is the development which “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987). It shows the importance of considering benefits for both current and future generations and strongly supports economic development, while it also implies when accessing environment and natural resources, human beings tend to take an anthropocentric view, that the primary goal is to satisfy human needs. With no regard for earth as a life-support system, a development will not be considered sustainable. Therefore, by taking economic, social, environmental issues into accounts is a key approach to develop sustainably in different contexts.