Abstract
Globalisation has a huge impact across the world via integration of economies in terms of thoughts, culture, ideas, technologies, markets, production processes, patterns of investments and capital flows, proliferation of international trade etc. Over the last three decades, almost all the Asian countries have witnessed rapid economic growth as an outcome of globalisation. The environmental impact of such growth is inclusive of but not limited to, natural resource exploitations, water, air, noise pollution, compromised ecosystem and global climate change. Even though the extant literature and the parallel policymaking circle proposes due environmental governance via improving the regulatory efficiency, it remains difficult to implement many of the specifics, in practice. Given this backdrop, 11 chapters of the book under review explore various aspects of environmental and climate change in Asia. The book is divided into three parts. The first part overviews the environment and climate change in Asia. The second part offers the evolution of environmental regulations and governance in Asia and finally, part three explores the impact of globalisation on environment. I will discuss each chapter briefly and few chapters illustratively to provide a sense of the depth and breadth of the topics covered.
Chapter 1 provides an overview of environmental performance index for Asian countries primarily via portraying their emission per capita, energy use, government expenditure on environmental protection, market-oriented regulations, and technology-driven production techniques that are well-practised. Acknowledging the fact that climate change is one of the biggest threats that humankind will experience in the coming centuries, and that many Asian countries are at very high risk, Chapter 2 highlights the economic impact of climate change based on IPCC’s assessment report. It discusses country-specific and global strategies to mitigate future emission scenarios.
In connection to this, Chapter 3 discussed the lessons of environmental regulations in Asia. In this chapter, the author Jinhua Zhao has identified broadly two instruments to bring down the environmental emission using both formal and informal methods. Among the formal methods command and control, pollution taxes, tradable permits, Coase regulation bargaining are well practiced, whereas among informal methods, voluntary measures are primarily executed. Chapter 3 concluded that simultaneous existence of both formal and informal techniques should be practiced by Asian countries in order to perform better environmental governance and performance. The predominance of literature in this area suggests a positive association between environmental governance and performance. Further to closely observe the relationship, an empirical exercise among the Asian and European countries has been performed in Chapter 4 and the result suggests that greater scale of government expenditure on environmental protection contributes to reduce emission. Chapter 5 focuses on the growth of carbon markets in Asia primarily via a case study of PRC. Chapters 1–5 indeed compel the readers to rethink the environmental problems and the need for corrective policies and valuing the environment. Given this scenario, Chapter 6 discusses economic valuation methods primarily via demand and non-demand curve approaches, such as the replacement cost method, mitigating behaviour, opportunity cost, dose–response method, contingent valuation method, and hedonic price theory.
A large part of the literature both theoretically and empirically accepted the fact that there is bidirectional relationship between globalisation and environment. For instance, globalisation via international trade and investment can affect environment (primarily via scale, composition and technique effect). Likewise, environmental policies can also affect international trade and investment flows. Part three of the book reviews literature on the issue of globalisation and environment. Indeed, Chapter 7 initiates the matter by reviewing recent theoretical and empirical literature on the impact of trade openness on environmental outcomes vis-a-vis the effect of environmental policies on trade and investment flows.
In Chapter 8, Jai-Young Choi, and Eden S. H. Yu draw another crucial aspect of globalisation via outsourcing of intermediate and finished goods between North and South. Underlying multiple advantages, such as reduced production cost and increasing production efficiency, outsourcing is often practiced across the world, especially PRC being the biggest destination for the same. Nonetheless, the effect of outsourcing on environment is costly for the vendor countries. Therefore, major vendor countries have gradually begun to adopt environmental regulations in order to internalise the cost. However, such policy shift is also costly in the sense that it upsurges the prices of outsourced goods in the north while not bringing back the south either to its acceptable environmental quality set by WHO. The authors have tried to investigate the welfare consequences of international outsourcing in a three-stage general equilibrium model and conclude that tightening environmental regulations and fostering international cooperation are needed to promote welfare. Chapter 8 is important reading for researchers examining mitigation and adaptation synergies between globalisation and environment.
Chapters 9–11 analyse the effect of globalisation on environment via case studies of PRC and India. Both PRC and India provide unique settings to analyse the issue, as both countries’ share of world trade has increased dramatically and which has its huge impact on environmental quality. In Chapter 9, authors Zheng Fang, Bihong Huang and Zhuoxiang Yang empirically observed the existence of EKC for PRC. Chapter 10 is another rewording attempt to analyse the effect of trade and FDI on environment in India by Sugata Marjit and Eden Yu. Chapter 10 provides both a theoretical foundation and an empirical examination of globalisation on environment. The chapter argued that economic growth experienced by India comes at the cost of environment, especially since economic liberalisation. However, for India, trade openness also helps to reduce environmental emissions predominantly due to the import of pollution-intensive manufactured goods and comparatively clean exportable basket. Finally, in Chapter 11, Shruti Sharma analyses differential impact of input and output trade liberalisation on plant-level investment in pollution abatement technologies for Indian firms and found that with a fall in input tariff, and increased inflow of FDI, Indian plants spend more on pollution abatement equipment which further mitigates the negative impact of pollution to a great extent.
Overall, the book offers important theoretical foundations and empirical examples of environmental problems and regulatory governance practiced in Asia. It seems however, that by providing a concluding chapter the book could have consolidated some of the issues discussed across chapters and provided a clear set of policy choices for Asian countries. Indeed, the editors could offer an unifying analysis of the different cases and synthesise the key problems, as well as associated regulatory measures for informing a transformative environmental agenda for Asia. However, by showcasing the importance of environmental realities and dynamics, shaping adaptation processes and outcomes, the book still makes an important contribution and will be valuable reading for students and researchers in environmental economics.