The Blackwell Companion to Globalization

Chapter 11

Globalization and the Environment

STEVE YEARLEY

INTRODUCTION: THE EARTH, THE GLOBE AND THE DISCOURSE OF THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT

At first sight, the environment and globalization seem to be very intimately connected since the environment is already global in very many ways. The atmosphere is shared by all; the sun’s warmth heats everyone; the oceans of the world all connect, effectively giving us one global marine environment. One could say that, unlike the market or telecommunications or terrorism, the environment always has been global. In this context, to talk about the ‘globalization of the environment’, as though the environment had only recently gained a global dimension, appears peculiar. Accordingly, one key issue for social scientists interested in globalization processes and the environment is about the very conceptualization of the ‘global environment’: what does it mean to think of the environment ‘globally’. In this chapter I shall review our understanding of globalization and the environment from three main perspectives. The first relates to the global environment itself and particularly to recent influences on the way that we think about issues at the level of the global environment. The second main perspective relates to institutions that affect the environment at a global level – specifically the interactions between environmental questions and bodies (particularly the World Trade Organization [WTO]) that aim to regulate global trade and to encourage world ...