Local Consumption and Global Environmental Impacts

Accounting, Trade-offs and Sustainability

Kuishuang Feng, Klaus Hubacek, Yang Yu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781317577270
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Environmental Economics
• Index: Economics

This book describes how local consumption, particularly in urban areas, is increasingly met by global supply chains. These supply chains often extend over large geographical distances and have greater global environmental impacts, contributing to pollution, climate change, water scarcity, and deforestation.

As consumption is increasingly met by globalized supply chains, causing social, economic, and environmental impacts elsewhere, consumption decisions can unknowingly contribute and reinforce global inequality and exploitation. To account for the impacts of consumption and distribution of wealth we need to analyze global supply and value chains. In this volume, the authors provide an overview of key methods of analysis, including Multi-Regional Input-Output analysis and Life Cycle Assessment. Subsequent chapters connect local consumption to the global consequences of different environmental issues, such as water and land use and stress, greenhouse gases emissions, and other forms of air pollution. Each issue is addressed in an individual chapter, including case studies from China, U.S. and UK.

The book will be key reading for students taking courses in environmental sciences, sustainability sciences, ecological economies, and geography.

1

INTRODUCTION

Globalization increases the interconnectedness of people and places around the world. In a connected world, goods and services consumed in one country are often produced in other countries and exchanged via international trade. Thus, local consumption, in particular in urban areas, is increasingly met by global supply chains, oftentimes involving large geographical distances. Such local consumption can lead to local and global environmental change and contribute to pollution, climate change, water scarcity, deforestation and land conversions, and biodiversity loss. Inequalities in consumption get translated into environmental terms: people in rich countries maintain higher incomes and more resource-intensive lifestyles, while people in poorer countries are often bearing the environmental consequences. Local decisions potentially contribute and reinforce global inequality and exploitation through global supply chains. Decision-making on environmental protection and climate change adaptation and mitigation require a better understanding of such social, economic and environmental linkages. Therefore, we need sophisticated tools to assess a range of environmental and social implications of our choices across spatial and temporal scales.

Consumption and environmental sustainability

Sustainable consumption and production (SCP) is a key policy and research agenda that emphasizes the need to transform society toward environmental and social sustainability. SCP involves not only decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation and pollution, but also improving the efficiency of natural resource use, promoting sustainable lifestyles and ensuring good quality of life for all (United Nations, 2018). It emphasizes the importance of operating along the entire supply chain, involving both producers and final consumers. Humans impose extreme stress on the environment to meet their consumption needs without respect to planetary boundaries, which are threshold levels for major Earth system elements and processes including stratospheric ozone, global freshwater, and nitrogen cycling beyond which humanity can not safely be sustained (Rockström et al., 2009). Research found that out of the nine measured planetary boundaries, four are already transgressed including biosphere integrity, climate change, biogeochemical flows, and land-system change. Recent research quantified resource use associated with meeting basic human needs for more than 150 countries in the world and found that no country is able to meet the basic needs for its citizens at a globally sustainable level of resource use (O’Neill, 2018). Physical needs including nutrition, sanitation, access to electricity and the elimination of extreme poverty could possibly be met for everyone without transgressing planetary boundaries; however, with the raising standards of living, people increasingly consume more products beyond the basic needs such as electronics, fashion items and entertainment products. In order to meet these more qualitative goals, it would require a level of resource use that is approximately two to six times the sustainable level (O’Neill, 2018). To make matters worse, each year, we waste one-third of all food produced (United Nations, 2018), pollute water quicker than it can be recycled and purified, use most of the energy from non-renewable sources, and increase levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere at fast rate (United Nations, 2018). It is worth noting that the majority of the world’s richest 10% high-emission producers live in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, and approximately a third come from the United States (U.S.). In OECD countries, the richest 10% of the population earns 9.6 times the income of the poorest 10%, while the latter is still facing difficulty to meet their basic needs (OECD, 2015). Globally, approximately half of the global carbon emissions can be attributed to the richest 10% of the population, who have an average carbon footprint 60 times as high as the poorest 10%. Moreover, the average carbon footprint of the richest 1% of people worldwide is nearly 175 times that of the poorest 10% (Oxfam, 2015). Fast-growing economies such as China and India also contribute considerably to global emissions. For example, average per capita emissions generated in China have currently surpassed those of the European Union (EU). Per capita carbon emissions of the 10% most affluent Chinese are still significantly lower than the most affluent OECD counterpart. In India, the gap is even more significant. The per capita emissions of the most affluent 10% of Indian citizens are only one-quarter of the poorest half of those from the U.S., and the per capita emissions of the poorest half of Indians are merely one-twentieth of the poorest half of American citizens (Oxfam, 2015). While the difference of carbon emissions between the rich and poor, and even poor in one country to poor people in another country, around the world is significant, the gap of those within one country can be considerable as well. In China, the very rich urban dwellers that account for 5% of China’s population produce 19% of the total carbon footprint from household consumption in China, nearly four times of their national average (Wiedenhofer, 2016). More sustainable lifestyle and consumption patterns would require moderation from overconsumption of many kinds of goods and services. Such changes could not only provide pathways to combat climate change, but could also help reduce negative impacts to human health, ecosystems, and preserve natural resources (Notter, 2013).

Looking into the future: growth in consumption and its global effects

If we kept current high resource-intensive lifestyles, the world would require almost three planets to provide the natural resources to sustain its population. With the increase of income, people consume more meat and dairy foods resulting in further intensification of agricultural production, which is associated with excessive consumption of energy and water (Weinzettel, 2013). On the one hand, 1.3 billion tons of food are thrown away every year; on the other hand, desertification, water pollution, and overfishing decrease food productivity (United Nations, 2018). The food sector alone consumes approximately 30% of global energy, and produces approximately 22% of total greenhouse gas emissions (United Nations, 2018). But other lifestyle and consumption-related factors contribute significantly to environmental stress. In OECD countries, it is expected that between 2002 to 2020, vehicle ownership will increase by 32%, and motor vehicle kilometers are expected to increase by 40% (United Nations, 2018). Globally, air travel is expected to triple by 2020 from 2002 (United Nations, 2018). Residential and commercial energy consumption are projected to grow rapidly as well (United Nations, 2018).

It is estimated that the world population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050, and 68% of the world’s population will live in urban areas. Combined with the overall growth of the world’s population, it is projected that another 2.5 billion people will live in urban areas, and most of this increase will take place in just a few countries, especially in Asia and Africa. By 2050, China will have added an estimated 225 million urban dwellers, India 416 million, and Nigeria 189 million (UNDESA, 2018). The world will have more megacities, defined as cities with more than 10 million dwellers. The intensification of urbanization will put more pressure on the environment. When people move from rural to urban centers, they adopt urban lifestyles and change to more material-intensive consumption patterns, buying more clothes, using more electric appliances, and increasing private car ownership. Urbanization can lead to unprecedented demand for infrastructure and utilities, which require significant materials and other natural resource inputs. The associated increase in consumption of goods and service and demand for infrastructure cause severe environmental impacts such as air pollution, water shortage, land degradation and CO₂ emissions. As the world continues to urbanize, there is an increasing need to focus on sustainable management of urban growth, particularly in the lower middle-income countries where urban growth is estimated to be the fastest. Many countries will face difficulties in meeting the basic needs of their growing urban population, including providing food, housing, transportation, energy, education and health care. Policies are needed to improve the living standards of both urban and rural dwellers, ensure access to social services for all, while reducing the excessive stress on the planet and adopting sustainable patterns of consumption and production (United Nations, 2014).

Therefore the need for change is clear, but how to quantify various environmental impacts associated with human consumption along the entire global supply chain? This book seeks to provide effective tools to assess a range of environmental and social implications of our choices across spatial and temporal scales.

Linking local consumption to global environmental changes

Due to the growth in world trade resulting from globalization, environmental issues are not a local matter anymore, and are becoming increasingly transboundary. Trade provides a link between production and consumption in different countries and regions along global supply chains. It becomes important to recognize the differences in production structure, energy use efficiency, and fuel mix across nations and regions when assessing total environmental impacts of consumption activities in a country. There is a growing and significant share of global emissions originating from the production of internationally traded products. Peters et al. (2011) found that from 1990 to 2008 carbon emissions in developed countries have stabilized, but emissions in developing countries have doubled. The increase of imports from developing countries partially contributes to the stabilization of emissions in developed countries. From 1990 to 2008, global carbon emissions from the production of traded goods and services have risen from 20% of global carbon emissions to 26% (Peters et al., 2011). Sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emissions are also mainly driven by consumption in developed countries, especially in the U.S. and the EU. China is the largest exporter of SO₂ emissions where 30% of China’s territorial emissions are associated with the production of exports. The U.S. outsources a huge amount of SO₂ emissions to less developed countries in China, Asia, and former Soviet Union countries.

There is also a significant portion of land displaced through international trade on a global scale, and the net displacement via trade from high-income countries to lower-income countries accounts for 25% of the total land associated with international traded goods (Weinzettel, 2013). Globally, water is another natural resource that is traded virtually through import and export of goods, with approximately 20% of water being traded. India and China are the largest exporters of virtual water in the world, while both countries have been experiencing water scarcity issues (Feng and Hubacek, 2015). As the extent of globalization increases, demand for limited natural resources grows, and, thereby, increases competition between energy, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, mining, transport, manufacturing, and other sectors affecting both livelihoods and the environment (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations – FAO, 2014).

To account for environmental impacts of consumption and distribution of wealth, global supply and value chain analysis is needed. Many approaches have been developed in the past to assess environmental impacts of different goods and services throughout the whole life cycle. They can be distinguished into two categories: bottom-up and top-down approaches. Bottom-up approaches refer to process analysis, which uses detailed descriptions of individual production processes and associated environmental impacts. However, this type of approach can lead to significant truncation errors in the calculations due to an artificial cut-off when defining the system boundaries (Lenzen, 2002; Menzies et al., 2007). By contrast, many studies developed top-down approaches, which are relying on the regional, national or international accounting system to illustrate the flows of goods and services among economic sectors, and input-output is one of the approaches. Multi-region input-output analysis (MRIO), based on monetary flows among sectors and regions, is able to capture distal connection between the local consumption and global environmental impacts through international trade. The MRIO approach considers the entire (global) economy as system boundary and allows capturing environmental impacts throughout global supply chains and linking them to a wide range of final products. In this book we will link local consumption to the global consequences of different environmental issues, such as water and land use and stress, greenhouse gases emissions, and other air pollution as well as economic and social indicators. One strength of the MRIO framework is that it enables us to see the big picture and the interactions between different economic sectors, environmental issues and choices we make and how they are linked together and affect each other.

References

Feng, K., Hubacek, K., 2015. A multi-region input-output analysis of global virtual water flows, in: Ruth, M. (Ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Environmental Studies. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2014. The future of food and agriculture: trends and challenges, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Ed.). FAO, Rome.

Lenzen, M., 2002. Differential Convergence of Life-Cycle Inventories toward Upstream Production Layers. J Ind Ecol 6, 137–160.

Menzies, G.F., Turan, S., Banfill, P.F.G., 2007. Life-cycle assessment and embodied energy: a review. Construction Materials 160, 135–143.

Notter, D.A., Meyer, R., Althaus, H.J., 2013. The Western Lifestyle and Its Long Way to Sustainability. Environ Sci Technol 47, 4014–4021.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2015. In It Together: Why less inequality benefits all. OECD Publishing, Paris. https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/in-it-together-why-less-inequality-benefits-all_9789264235120-en#page4

O’Neill, D.W., Fanning, A.L., Lamb W.F., Steinberger, J.K., 2018. A good life for all within planetary boundaries. Nature Sustainability 1, 88–95.

Oxfam, 2015. Extreme Carbon Inequality. Oxfam International, UK. www.oxfam.org/en/research/extreme-carbon-inequality

Peters, G.P., Minx, J.C., Weber, C.L., Edenhofer, O., 2011. Growth in emission transfers via international trade from 1990 to 2008. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, 8903–8908.

Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, A., Chapin, F.S., III, Lambin, E.F., Lenton, T.M., Scheffer, M., Folke, C., Schellnhuber, H.J., Nykvist, B., de Wit, C.A., Hughes, T., van der Leeuw, S., Rodhe, H., Sörlin, S., Snyder, P.K., Costanza, R., Svedin, U., Falkenmark, M., Karlberg, L., Corell, R.W., Fabry, V.J., Hansen, J., Walker, B., Liverman, D., Richardson, K., Crutzen, P., Foley, J.A., 2009. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461, 472–475.

United Nations, 2014. World’s population increasingly urban with more than half living in urban areas. www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/world-urbanization-prospects-2014.html, Accessed December 1, 2018.

United Nations, 2018. Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. United Nations, New York.

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), 2018. World Urbanization Prospects 2018. United Nations. https://population.un.org/wup/, Accessed December 1, 2018.

Weinzettel, J.H., Hertwich, E.G., Peters, G., Steen-Olsen, K., Galli A., 2013. Affluence drives the global displacement of land use. Global Environmental Change 23, 433–438.

Wiedenhofer, D.G., Guan, D., Liu, Z., Meng, J., Zhang, N., Wei, Y.M., 2016. Unequal household carbon footprints in China. Nature Climate Change, 19 December 2016.

2

METHODOLOGY

Environmental impact accounting approaches

Introduction

Goods and services are frequently produced involving complex (global) supply chains. Consumption of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Methodology Environmental impact accounting approaches
• 3. Local consumption and global air pollution
• 4. Local consumption and global land use
• 5. Carbon footprint of Chinese megacities Case studies of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing
• 6. Economic gains and environmental losses of U.S. consumption
• 7. Consumption-based accounting of U.S. CO2 emissions from 1990 to 2010
• 8. Global water footprint of nations A case study of the UK
• 9. Conclusions Stepping back
• Index