Environmental Sentiment and the Level of Globalization
Economic globalization impacts the environment and sustainable development in a wide variety of ways and through a multitude of channels. Globalisation goes hands in hands with trade liberalization, investment and finance, and technology diffusion etc ..... It is a worldwide phonomenon that the more one country engages in international trading with the pressure of globalisation, the more one conscious about the environment. The typical example is mainland China. The rational behind perhaps is with incrasing knowlege and technology level and accumlated waelth, people are more aware about their living standard, so they seeks more sustainable way of making their living/money. Leave aside the effectiveness of the environmental friendly schemes China has implemented, at least people are more concern about this matter. In this exercise, we shall examine the positive between globalisation and environmental setiment. We will look into this issue into 3 sectors namely governemnt, organisations and lastly the general public. 
The higher the level of a globalized country, the higher the responsibility towards global issue
In bygone days, every country just focuses on its own issues. They just care about their economic growth, political stability, and you name it. With increasing international trade and economic growth in the 20th century, developed countries seem to have greater responsibility on the world issue. Their responsibilities includes anti-terrorism, maintain financial stability, transfer of technology to less-developed countries, etc. However, environment is a major area of concerns.
In economics sense, “fresh air” is not a private property. This undefined property right lead to overexploitation and pollution since polluters don’t have to pay the external cost to the society. For example, an industrial firm does not need to compensate a citizen who suffered from lung cancer caused by toxic pollutants like nitrogen oxide. A country does not have to compensate the other countries if its pollutant spread around the world and destroy the ozone layer. The greenhouse effect is increasingly concerned around the world. Therefore, many treaties related to environmental protection established, like the Earth Summit in 1992, Koyoto Protocol in 1997, the World Summit in 2002, etc. From the summit, it seems that the higher the wealth of the country, the higher the responsibility of reducing the greenhouse gases.
In this century, environmental protection has been a hot topic in the world. Each country has this common problem. This problem is not only affecting health of human, but also affect global economics. Thus, people around the world are trying to find out the solution. However, a country cannot solve this problem by her and countries must cooperate. Global warming is a serious problem every country is facing and they are trying their best to reduce the impact. That proves that environmental protection is a global problem. China is one of the countries which cause serious environment damage. And the damage of China makes some negative effect to other countries. Therefore, China and other countries should solve the problem together. When countries are concerning this problem, they shift their focus from economic growth to environmental protection and cooperate to find the solution.
From Government Policies to Corporate Strategic Management
It is wildly believe those corporations don’t like to set up the factory in the developed countries like Britain as there is strict regulation and environmental protection policies as well as high labor cost. Transnational companies like to relocate their production line to the newly industrialized countries like China and India. In the last decade, there are many manufacturing firms set up in China.
With the rising wealth in China, the Chinese government began to notice the importance of environmental protection. In the previous “Five year Plan” announced by the PRC government, the Chinese government provide a lot of subsidies for the renewable energy resources businesses like nuclear power, solar energy and wind power, etc. Apart from those renewable resource companies like the Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., Ltd., some companies in China changed their products to fit in the current market trend due to the change in government policies as well as the consumption pattern of citizens.
Accroding to Pei (2007), Corruption poses one of the most lethal threats to China's future economic develpoment and political stability. Although policies greatly support the shift of green management in China, the effectiveness of the policies may be affected by corruption. Some government officials may not exercise the law strictly due to monetary rewards.
Accroding to Pei (2007), Corruption poses one of the most lethal threats to China's future economic develpoment and political stability. Although policies greatly support the shift of green management in China, the effectiveness of the policies may be affected by corruption. Some government officials may not exercise the law strictly due to monetary rewards.
From Battery to Auto – BYD “Build Your Dreams”
BYD, founded in China, is one of the largest rechargeable battery manufacturers in the world. In view of the current trend in China, BYD acquired Tsinchuan Automobile Co Ltd. in 2002 and started to manufacture electric vehicle. BYD became more famous in the world when Warren Buffett invested USD$230 million in September, 2008.
This change is due to the fact that electric cars could reduce the pollution level caused by gasoline. It could also reduce China’s dependency on importing crude oil and it favors national security. Moreover, the “Twelfth Five Years Plan” announced by the PRC government strongly supports the innovation and manufacturing electric car. It is one of the most important strategies of China’s development.
It is troublesome to mix politics with business, however, it is inevitable. The “Toyota Accident” in 2010 is somehow a matter of political matter. I do believe that there are some problems with the defective accelerator pedals of the cars. However, did it represent there is no such problem in U.S. manufactured car? According to the data, there are 216 recall of car on the six connective months before January 2010. Out of the 216 recalls, Toyota accounts for only 6. The others were mainly American cars.
Companies move towards environmental friendly
As China becoming more and more globalised, the government is more concern about the environment issues. this drives the companies to consider more sustainable ways of doing businesses too.
Let's take China Shenhua Energy Company Limited as an example. China Shenhua is a world-leading coal-based integrated energy company. Its main business includes production and sales of coal, railway and port transportation of coal-related materials, as well as power generation and sales. The Company has established departments and positions responsible for environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction. In addition, China Shenhua continued to accelerate the implementation of the environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction project in mines, railways, ports and power plants. The Company vigorously develops renewable energy power projects to provide green energy and reduce emission of greenhouses gases.
http://www.csec.com/htmlen/responsibility/page_5_9_5.html
The rise of green companies in China
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzNaCVnDpvI
In recent years, the Chinese government has spent over $5billion on cutting down the pollution and protecting the environment. This has inspired new business opportunities. With the carbon credit scheme, many companes are willing to cut back carbon emmisions. Under this scheme, the comapny can get back money by selling their carbon emission quata in the international market. This directly motivates more companies to go greener with monetary incentives.
According to Wharton (2010), China has ambitious technological development goals and maintains hospitable incentives for large technology-oriented investments. However, the industrial-development policies often conflict with the state’s desire to maintain control over political expression and media content.
Although our topic is mainly related to environmental sentiment, we did mention the impact for government. As mentioned in the previous part, corporate international strategy is strongly affected by government policy. The most difficult job for the corporation is to overcome the unfavorable political issue of the country. Take the Google case as an example, the things that Google is trying to do is violating the fundamental value of the Chinese government. This article made me remember a book I previously read, which called the 14 economic wars that China is facing.
Companies move towards environmental friendly
As China becoming more and more globalised, the government is more concern about the environment issues. this drives the companies to consider more sustainable ways of doing businesses too.
Let's take China Shenhua Energy Company Limited as an example. China Shenhua is a world-leading coal-based integrated energy company. Its main business includes production and sales of coal, railway and port transportation of coal-related materials, as well as power generation and sales. The Company has established departments and positions responsible for environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction. In addition, China Shenhua continued to accelerate the implementation of the environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction project in mines, railways, ports and power plants. The Company vigorously develops renewable energy power projects to provide green energy and reduce emission of greenhouses gases.http://www.csec.com/htmlen/responsibility/page_5_9_5.html
The rise of green companies in China
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzNaCVnDpvI
In recent years, the Chinese government has spent over $5billion on cutting down the pollution and protecting the environment. This has inspired new business opportunities. With the carbon credit scheme, many companes are willing to cut back carbon emmisions. Under this scheme, the comapny can get back money by selling their carbon emission quata in the international market. This directly motivates more companies to go greener with monetary incentives. Efforts of environmental protection from public
In the recent years, most people in the world being to realize the importance of environmental protection which becomes a global topic. The environment is changing rapidly that it affects the everyday life of each people. For example, global warming make the temperature increase a lot that people need to make some changing to adapt it. Furthermore, environmental issues may affect the economics of countries all over the world. It will have serious impact caused by environmental damage. Therefore, people think that we should be aware of importance of environmental protection and have some measures to improve the environment. And environmental protection is essential in the age of globalization.
As suggested by Chase (2011), "this fact creates a set of systemic constraints that require global collective action." Environmental problem needs all countries to cooperate to solve because one country is not capable to solve this serious problem. For example, the pollution made by China affects other countries which locate near China. So China and those countries need to cooperate to solve the problem. Now countries in the world are facing the same problem that they need to find the solution together.
Facing the environmental problem, people in different countries use different methods to try to solve it. In China, there are many organizations which try their best to promote the importance of environmental protection and take action. According to China Education Daily, there are the major signs in this century that more consciously participate in the public and building a green economy and social development in China.
Chinese citizens have shown an increasing level of environmental awareness, which is evident in the development of environment activism and symbolized by the organization of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) voluntary groups (Lei, 2009). That means Chinese citizens change the view of the past that they focus the impact of global warming now. There are 1.3 billion people in China which is 20 percent of the world. If Chinese citizens commit to protect the environment, it will be a great impact. Luckily, affected by globalization, Chinese citizens are more aware the issues about environmental protection and they can exchange the ideas with other people in different countries through the internet. Also civil society organizations have become a social trend that more and more people attend.
Besides China, USA is another country which has visible negative impacts to climate change in the world. Recently, not only the US government focuses the environmental problem, but also US citizens.
The above diagram is the annual survey done by Gallup which is about the opinion of environmental protections. We can see that the percentage of concern for environmental protection is increasing continuously and excess the percentage of economic growth in 2008. It points out that more and more US citizens shift their concern to environmental issues from economic growth since 1984.
Moreover, there is some finding which shows that people always discuss sustainability topics in the internet. These data are gathered from blogs and discussion board. People are very easy to exchange their ideas in the internet in the world and they can know different situations in different countries. This finding shows that people have more concern about environmental issues and try to share some suggestions how to solve the problem.
All-in-all, the externality of air pollution problem is difficult to solve as the property right of clear air is not well-defined. Unless the general public, corporations as well as the governments from all over the world cooperate and identify their responsibilities, the problems won't be solve as it is a global issue.
References:
Chase, C. (2011), Globalization: A World-Systems Perspective
Hollis, Nigel (2009), Rethinking Globalization, pp.14-16
Wharton (2010), Google’s License Renewal in China: Victory, Defeat or Stalemate?
Pei, M. (2007), Corruption Threatens China’s Future, Carnegie, p.1
