Globalisation, Ecosystem Services and Human well-being

As the twenty-first century dawns, goods, money, people, ideas, and pollution are travelling around the world with unprecedented speed and scale (French, 2000). This multi-dimensional trend often referred to as globalization affects peoples all over the world and raise a number of questions.

Over the last decades, the rapid economic growth and the production and consumption patterns have not succeeded in satisfying people’s basic needs around the world, in particular in developing countries. The unsustainable use of the natural resources has caused great damage to the environment, but has not managed to satisfy all human fundamental needs. Economic globalization has brought negative impacts that are evident in the trade-related loss of natural resources,and abrupt investment shifts that have negative consequences (UNEP, WSSD, 2002). As noted on the Third Global Environment Outlook report (GEO3), “the forces of globalization continue to present a challenging new context for the implementation of environmental policy, presenting new opportunities but also posing risks of poverty and marginalization for a large segment of the world’s population”.

While “the dominance of economic (…capitalist) globalization processes is often believed to be the root cause of these detrimental environmental effects”, globalization may also be seen as a multifaceted phenomenon with both potentially devastating and potentially beneficial consequences (A.Mol). Economic globalization has indeed brought positive changes in increasing access to goods and services, foreign investment and local employment and integrating the economy and the environment by employing market-based instruments (UNEP, WSSD, 2002).

According to the 55/2 United Nations Millenium Declaration, “the central challenge we face today is to ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for all the world’s people. While globalization offers great opportunities, at present its benefits are very unevenly shared, while its costs are unevenly distributed. (…) only through broad and sustained efforts to create a shared future, based upon our common humanity in all its diversity, can globalization be made fully inclusive and equitable”. The role of the civil society to pursue this goal is crucial.

• 55/2 United Nations Millenium Declaration
• "Third Global Environment Outlook report (GEO3)
• A Fair Globalization: Creating Opportunities for All - ILO publication
• Living Beyond Our Means: Natural Assets and Human Well-Being. A statement from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Board.
• Worlds Apart: Globalization and the Environment. Edited by James G. Speth. To read extract of book, please click here
  
• Presentation on Globalisation, Ecosystem Services and Human well-being
  

Trade and Environment
The potential problems for the environment posed by globalization and the rapid growth of international trade are a central concern. UNEP has therefore enhanced its working relationship with both the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to address the crucial nexus between trade and environment, including through the UNEP-UNCTAD Capacity Building Task Force on Trade, Environment and Development (CBTF).

In 2006, UNCTAD prepared the Trade and Environment Review to analyse the relationship between environmental requirements and market access for developing countries. UNCTAD has been exploring the trade and sustainable development opportunities arising from emerging markets for environmentally preferable products. Important UNCTAD initiatives in this area include the International Task Force on Harmonization and Equivalence in Organic Agriculture (ITF) created by UNCTAD, the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), as well as ongoing and planned activities under the UNEP-UNCTAD Capacity Building Task Force on Trade, Environment and Development (CBTF).

The CBTF is a joint initiative of UNEP and UNCTAD, launched at UNCTAD in Bangkok in 2000. Its overall objective is to help strengthen the capacities of interested developing countries to effectively address trade, environment and development issues, in particular those of national and regional interests. To read more about CBTF, please click here.

• UNEP/GC.19/27 Globalization and the Environment: Emerging Issues on the Environment and Trade Agenda: Report by the Executive Director
• GC decision 19/6. Globalization and the environment: emerging issues on the environment and trade agenda
• Information on Environment and Trade, IISD
• Environment and Trade.  A Handbook - UNEP/DTIE/ETB/IISD
• UNCTAD Trade and Environment Review 2006
• WTO background paper on Trade and Environment
• The Doha Mandate on Trade and Environment
• OECD Environment and Trade

Globalization and gender equality
While women bear a disproportionate burden of the world's poverty, in some cases, globalization has widened the gap, with women losing more than their share of jobs, benefits and labour rights. From tax systems to trade regimes, however, economic policies and institutions still mostly fail to take gender disparities into account. With too few seats at the tables where economic decisions are made, women themselves have limited opportunities of rectifying the deepening of existing inequalities (UNIFEM).

• UNIFEM Women, Poverty and Economics

Globalization and MDGs
The MDG Report of 2005 states that “despite the many benefits of globalization, nearly half the world’s 2.8 billion workers still live on less than $2 a day. More than 500 million of these workers subsist on half that much. Reducing poverty among them will require more jobs and more productive employment”.

• UN Millenium Development Goals Report 2006
• UNCTAD Globalization and Development
• UNCTAD Trade and Development Report 2005
• Does Globalization Help or Hurt the World’s Poor? Article by Pranab Bardhan

More from the major groups

• Vanishing Borders: Protecting the Planet in the Age of Globalization: Hilary French. To read the summary of the book, please click here.
• Paradigm Wars: Indigenous Peoples’ Resistance to Economic Globalization
• State of the World 2000
• International Centre on Trade and Sustainable Development
• International Forum on Globalization
• International Institute for Sustainable Development 
• Third World Network
• Yale Global 
• Worldwatch Institute : Resources on Globalization and Governance