Determinants of International Environmental Impact Shifting
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Date
2023
Publication Type
Doctoral Thesis
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yes
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Abstract
Consumption in high-income countries is linked to environmental degradation around the world. Addressing the environmental consequences of consumption is key to handling global environmental challenges and environmental injustices between lower- and higher-income countries. This dissertation maps and explains the driving forces behind environmental impact shifting, a process in which environmental impacts (e.g., water pollution, deforestation, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions) are offshored from one country to another mainly through consumption. To explain the drivers of environmental impact shifting, this dissertation examines the societal and political factors at the macro, micro, and meso level that contribute to the relocation of environmental degradation. At the macro level, this dissertation examines how environmental impacts embodied in international trade are shifted between countries and which country-specific factors, such as economic inequality, democracy, and participation in multilateral agreements, influence this process. On the micro level, the dissertation focuses on the effects that consumer decisions and citizens' environmental concern can have on offshoring of environmental degradation, as well as which policies individuals prefer to mitigate the relocation of environmental impacts. Concerning the meso level, the dissertation examines the attention policymakers pay to environmental issues at home and abroad by analyzing parliamentary debates on the international dimension of environmental degradation. The findings of this dissertation indicate that on the macro level, clear drivers that affect how environmental impacts are shifted between countries are economic inequality and democracy levels. Affluence, equality, and higher levels of democracy lead to more offshoring of pollution to poorer, less equal, and less democratic countries. Only environmental provisions in trade agreements appear to be capable of reducing the relocation of environmental impact flows between countries. With respect to the micro level, the findings of this dissertation suggest that when citizens receive information about the total environmental impact of consumption, their awareness and concern increase. However, citizens' preferences on policy measures to mitigate environmental impact shifting remain largely unchanged. Hence, on the micro level, citizens change their attitudes but not their policy preference when faced with information on the environmental impact their nation's consumption has abroad. Furthermore, in their purchasing decisions, consumers from higher-income countries directly contribute to outsourcing of environmental impacts by indicating a higher willingness to pay for decreasing the environmental footprint when a good is produced at home rather than abroad. Hence, discrimination between products according to where the environment is polluted could contribute to environmental impact shifting. On the meso level, this dissertation finds that the global environmental consequences of consumption are still an issue hardly discussed in parliamentary speeches. However, concerning the context in which environmental issues are discussed in general, the findings show that nationalist members of parliament in the German Bundestag are less inclined to speak about the international dimension of environmental issues, whereas the opposite is true in the British House of Commons. Findings on the meso level show that party systems play an important role in how much attention policymakers pay to the international dimension of environmental issues. In sum, the findings of this dissertation imply that there are clear micro-level forces in high-income countries that drive outsourcing of environmental impacts. The results of this dissertation show the need to further increase transparency about the global external consequences of consumption.
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published
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ETH Zurich
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Subject
International environmental politics; Consumption-based emissions
Organisational unit
03446 - Bernauer, Thomas / Bernauer, Thomas
Notes
Funding
182235 - Environmental Footprint-Shifting Through International Trade: Driving Forces and Policy Options (SNF)
Related publications and datasets
Has part: https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000625641
Has part: https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000613346