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ENVIRONMENT AND GLOBAL JUSTICE
Environmental justice
analysis framework
• Discussions of environmental justice often distinguish
procedural environmental justice from substantive
(or distributive) environmental justice.
• Procedural environmental justice:
• the opportunity for “all people regardless of race,
ethnicity, income, national origin or educational
level” to have “meaningful involvement” in
environmental decision-making.
• Two functions:
• Good in itself: similar to more general understanding
of democracy.
• Essential for substantive environmental justice
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Environmental justice
analysis framework
• Substantive (or distributive) environmental justice:
Expectation that benefits and burdens are distributed fairly
among all players.
o In line with Rawl’s procedural justice which is one of the building
blocks of justice (e.g. equal opportunity, basic liberties, benefits to
all).
• Logic:
o a chance to participate in decision-making associated with
environment (procedural environmental justice), is a form of
assurance that everyone has a chance to defend their
substantive environmental rights.
o As a result those who seek imposing unfair environmental
burdens (substantive environmental injustice) on people would
have harder time accomplishing their objective through a just
procedure vs. an unjust procedure.
Environmental justice
analysis framework
• Three main questions of distributive environmental
justice:
• What is the scope of beneficiaries of environmental
justice (e.g. “recipients”)?
• What benefits are distributed?
• What is the principle of distribution?
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Beneficiaries of
environmental justice
• Definition of “community of justice”: Who are the
recipients of environmental justice?
• Considerations:
• Should our definition be anthropocentric (all humans)
or non-anthropocentric (humans and other sentient
beings),
• Should our definition be intergenerational (current
and future generations) or merely intragenerational
(current generation only), and
• Should our definition be international (all people or all
nation-states) or merely domestic (one nation-state).
Beneficiaries of
environmental justice
• Historically the environmental justice consideration in
the high income countries have been dominated by
narrow definitions of environmental justice
• For instance, in the US the initial focus of
environmental justice movement has been on current
US citizens
• This is reflected in environmental legislation
• More recent definitions both in the US and other
countries started including the citizens of other states
and future generations.
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Benefits to be distributed
• Historically, in high income countries
the focus was on the distribution of
burdens
• For instance, in the US the focus was
“environmental hazards”, “toxics” or
“pollution”.
• Argument: the distribution of
environmental burdens is not fair
since certain social groups (low
income & ethnic minorities) are
more likely to be exposed to
environmental hazards.
• For example
o US: Long history of research shows correlation
between low income and pollution (ex. Cancer
alley)
o U.K. found that “66% of carcinogen emissions
are in the most deprived 10% of [local
authority] wards” (Friends of the Earth 2001).
Benefits to be distributed
• Recent elaboration of the idea of environmental justice:
• Shift of the focus on a more general idea of
environmental quality and ability to experience quality
environments
• For instance, the idea of burdens assumes a dichotomy
• Air pollution is a burden because clean air is a benefit,
therefore,
• The focus of the earlier idea of burdens is on specific
basic environmental goods undermined by
environmental hazards (e.g. clean air, clean water,
uncontaminated land)
• The new focus emphasizes the importance of general
environmental quality (such as green spaces,
countryside, etc.).
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Principles of distribution
• Three principles of distribution:
• Equality principle;
• The emphasis of early understanding of
environmental justice is on unequal distribution of
pollution where
• low income and minority communities carried “a
disproportionate burden from this type of health
threat”, therefore,
• This burden should be should be distributed equally.
Principles of distribution
• Equality plus a guaranteed standard principle;
• The equality principle emphasized the importance of
equal distribution of “bads”
• With time this understanding of environmental justice
shifted its focus on environmental justice as basic
right for environmental goods beneficial for health
• Equal distribution of pollution is no longer sufficient
for environmental justice,
• It is important that the pollution is reduced to zero
levels and
• Access to quality environment should be distributed
as basic right
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Principles of distribution
• A guaranteed minimum with variation above that
minimum according to personal income and
spending choices.
• Further elaboration of understanding of
environmental right assumes that not everybody has
“equal” access to quality environment
• Not every location has equally quality environments
and not everyone can afford living in such
environment
• However, even the least desirable locations should
meet certain minimum standards
Globalization and
environmental justice
• Some of the problems of environmental justice
concerns associated with the process of
globalization
• At the center of public discourse:
• Problems linked to the distribution of environmental
burdens and benefits and associated with global
environmental problems (e.g. global climate
change).
• These are the problems you are most likely to name if
I ask you to identify some of such problem
• Just to refresh your memory the features of the
problem of global climate change
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Globalization and
environmental justice
• Industrial countries are the major
contributors to the problem and the
major beneficiaries
• They enjoy the socio-economic
benefits of industrial development
and economic growth:
o Pollution is distributed globally
o Developed countries have better chance to
deal with changing environment
o For instance, easier for them to relocate
(compare Florida & Bangladesh),
o Better access to technological solutions (e.g.
improved crop varieties (R&D) or irrigation
systems)
Bangladesh, sea
levels rise scenarios
Globalization and
environmental justice
• Disproportionally distributed negative environmental effects
• we talked about development geography’s view on
development in the context of environmental migration.
• Those countries that were initially disadvantaged are the
ones to be affected the most by global climate change
(e.g. sub-Saharan Africa)
• Some of the common problems of global climate change
that severely affect or will affect disadvantaged countries:
o Increase in vector diseases
o Rise of sea levels
o Change in precipitation patterns (regions that are already
experience problems with draughts are the once that will be
affected the most)
o flooding, desertification and extreme storms
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Globalization and
environmental justice
• Overall we can summarize these negative effects at
several key areas affecting basic human rights:
• health,
• food security,
• poverty,
• political instability
Globalization and
environmental justice
• Less discussed problems of globalization in the context
of environmental justice:
• The problems that are similarly important and
recognized by experts, yet less commonly discussed in
general public discourse are associated with general
idea of footprints
• In the nutshell the idea of ecological footprint is
intimately linked to the idea of ecosystem’s carrying
capacity and
• could be defined in simple terms as:
o “the amount of the environment necessary to produce the
goods and services [produce food and assimilate waste]
necessary to support a particular lifestyle” (WWF)
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Globalization and
environmental justice
• Similar to the idea of banking countries in respect to their
consumption patters could be viewed in terms of ecology running
deficit, being neutral or running surplus
• Although different maps exist (here few countries have sustainable
consumption levels) all countries would suggest that high income
countries have unsustainable consumption
Globalization and
environmental justice
• The footprints idea suggest that developed countries
tend to be net negative and rely on additional
resources extracted from other parts of the world
• These are typically resources dependent countries
(often low income)
• This consumption benefits high income countries, but
often is a burden for the low income countries
• may seem counterintuitive, because these low income
countries should benefit from selling their resources. But
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Globalization and
environmental justice
• the reality is that due to various reasons – including the
corrupted governance system and/or existing
economic structure (only resource sectors are
developed), the associated problems is a burden to
general public, while benefits is distributed among few
• Few environmental justice problems that stay below
the radar of wider public discourse, while is a serious
problems (NOTE: these problems primarily
concentrated in low income regions of the world)
• Bellow examples are adopted from: “The world’s top 10
battles for environmental justice” COSMOS
CONVERSATION GEOSCIENCE 12 JUNE 2018
Globalization and
environmental justice
• Renewable energy conflicts (31 wind & 326 water
infrastructure conflicts)
• Competition at the area of renewable energy drives mega
projects like Narmada mega dam in India and mega wind
projects in Mexico, Kenya, India are triggering conflicts.
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Globalization and environmental justice
• Land grabbing – 600+ conflicts
• Global need for palm oil trigger a land-grabbing surge for
plantations and threatens livelihoods of communities.
o half of all packaged products sold in the supermarket contains palm oil.
• Palm oil plantations:
o replace food crops, deprive farmers from their land, increase slave labour, cause
environmental destruction like deforestation, water pollution, infertile soil and fires.
Globalization and environmental justice
• Mega-mining – 270 conflicts
• New technologies, highly polluting chemicals and massive
amounts of water accompany mega-mining expansion in
Latin America and Western Africa affecting the livelihoods
of locals.
• Examples: bauxite or iron in Guinea, gold in Burkina
Faso, Senegal and Ghana.
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Globalization and environmental justice
• Fossil fuels – 178 conflicts
• New extraction methods and locations due to challenges of
industry & demand for resources.
• EX: oil sand drilling and fracking, Arctic and deep water drilling.
• Problems: contamination of fresh water supplies, devastation of
marine systems, seismic activity and global warming.
Globalization and environmental justice
• Trash economy – 126 conflicts
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Globalization and environmental justice
• Sand mafias – 82 conflicts
• Illegal sand mining has ten times more economic value
than all wildlife crime.
• The causes of the surge in demand for sand:
o booming building industry
o land expansion
o mining of ilmenite (titanium production) and zircon at beaches.
Globalization and environmental justice
• Fighting for fish – 77 conflicts
• The industrialization of fishing since the 1950s is causing stock
collapses and extinctions.
• This has negative effect on small-scale fishing communities
• Some examples are the ones by intensive fish farms in
Turkey or in Chile, big port projects in India and polluting
industries in Ecuador.
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Globalization and environmental justice
• Pesticide popularity – 23 conflicts
• Proven negative effects of pesticides on health and
wildlife
• Yet, industrial farming requires intensive use of
pesticides in developing countries.
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