Does Free Trade Help or Hurt the Climate?
Hi all, would like to share this article with you.
For me, my thoughts on the future of trade, is that world trade will not settle on “protectionism” as a steady state. World’s trade may move towards protectionism, since major powers, like the U.S., have already been using import taxes to raise revenues, but economic history (and theory) has shown that trade barriers using taxes/subsidies, or better known as “beggar thy neighbour”, will ultimately result in retaliations from trading partners, to the point that international trade will shrink to near zero, and such is not a “win win” scenario to any trading country. Besides, we have international bodies like the WTO to ensure that protectionism is not advocated. So as an economic incentive, countries that might move towards protectionism, will only enjoy revenue gains in the short run, but suffer immensely when world trade collapses in the long run.
But that’s only what theory says, and history may not be an accurate representation as to what will happen in the future. Environmental Security is one issue we must take into account when crafting future hypotheses/scenarios. Will free trade help or hurt the climate? There has and always been an emphasis on green technology for e.g. fission energy, solar energy etc. Green houses are already being built to save the environment. The thing is, that the people are serious about it and the direction trade is going to take might be dictated by its involvement in saving/hurting the planet.
The article is at: http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/does-free-trade-help-or-hurt-the-climate/
Regards,
Barnabas
