Environment/IPE

Environmental problems and international cooperation (water, food, climate change) Problems of Global Cooperation Global governance Epistemic Communities (knowledge communities among experts, policy makers Kyoto Protocol

Sustainable development and link to production, distribution, consumption Small farming/agribusiness Bio diversity (sustainability, organic small farming) Water use for commodity production (coca cola) vs. farming Intellectual property rights/natural resources

Terms Environmentalism/ anthropocentric Ecologism / humans-nature, ecocentric Light Green - reformist agenda – capitalism+ enviromentalism Dark Green - radical Market incentives (clean technology) More radical political/social change

Environment/IPE – debate between Technocentric and Ecocentric approaches to sustainability Core assumption of economic growth/consumption/multiplication of needs Critics argue – this represents western cultural values, e.g. consumerism

TechnocentricEcocentric Economic growthZero eco. Growth Large scale org.small scale Green consumerismLimited ConservationistPreservationist Trade/environmentanti-trade statessmall communities IEOresist industrialize

Environment, natural resources, agriculture and poverty Destruction of small faming through agribusiness, role of WTO Grain, wheat, water Seed sector liberalized, replace organic small farms with hybrid genetic seeds, BT cotton Non-renewable seed, high cost chemicals

US $4 billion subsidies for agribusiness Ban on indigenous oils (mustard, coconut etc.) replace with high cost soya and palm oil (India 70% of market now soya and palm oil) Palm oil- destruction of rain forest, Borneo Soya – deforestation, Amazon Monsanto – seed

Intellectual property rights, patent on natural resources Bio-piracy intellectual property theft Vandana Shiva (Indian physicist, global environmental activist) 1993 Right to Livelihood Award Neem, India (11 years law suit) Rice Tex- Texas patent on variety of basmati Monsanto – patent on variety of wheat Water- Coca Cola bottling water, India farmer suicides

Global Crisis, Water Blue Gold World Bank reports – 80 countries water shortage threaten health and economy Water, like energy, will probably become the most critical resource issue facing most parts of the world at the start of the 21 st century 2.4 billion people no access to clean water 12% of worlds population uses 85% of water

Reasons for Water depletion Population growth, demand for water double every 21 years (claim – water scarcity) Global Delivery system? Unsustainable levels of consumption Since 1900 six fold increase in water use, only 2 fold increase in population size

Water usage for higher standard of living (not grain based, but meat) Depletion of ground water supplies Coca Cola Bottling plants in India forced Indian farmers to dig as deep as 450 ft. below ground (1 litre of Coca Cola = 3 litres of water) Privatization of water delivery raises costs in LDCs

United Nations, 2006 UN Human Development Report We reject this (Malthusian perspective that global water problems are a problem of scarcity and population growth). The availability of water is a concern for some countries. But the scarcity at the heart of the global water crisis is rooted in power, poverty and inequality, not in physical availability.

Vandana Shiva Not a water shortage crisis but a water management crisis