Peter Dauvergne

Forests, food, and fuel in the tropics: the uneven social and ecological consequences of the emerging political economy of biofuels.

The global political economy of biofuels emerging since 2007 appears set to intensify inequalities among the countries and rural peoples of the global South. Looking through a global political economy lens, this paper analyses the consequences of proliferating biofuel alliances among multinational corporations, governments, and domestic producers. Since many major biofuel feedstocks – such as sugar, oil palm, and soy – are already entrenched in industrial agricultural and forestry production systems, the authors extrapolate from patterns of production for these crops to bolster their argument that state capacities, the timing of market entry, existing institutions, and historical state-society land tenure relations will particularly affect the potential consequences of further biofuel development. Although the impacts of biofuels vary by region and feedstock, and although some agrarian communities in some countries of the global South are poised to benefit, the analysis suggests that already-vulnerable people and communities will bear a disproportionate share of the costs of biofuel development, particularly for biofuels from crops already embedded in industrial production systems. A core reason, this paper argues, is that the emerging biofuel alliances are reinforcing processes and structures that increase pressures on the ecological integrity of tropical forests and further wrest control of resources from subsistence farmers, indigenous peoples, and people with insecure land rights. Even the development of so-called ‘sustainable’ biofuels looks set to displace livelihoods and reinforce and extend previous waves of hardship for such marginalised peoples.

The Changing North–South and South–South Political Economy of Biofuels

Abstract Since the 2007 food crisis, controversy has engulfed biofuels. Leading up to the crisis, world-wide interest in these fuels—which include biomass, biogas, bioethanol, and biodiesel—had been surging as states increasingly saw these as a way to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets and promote sustainable economic development. Now some consumers, notably in Europe, are scaling back demand as they worry that biofuels are responsible for increased food prices and deforestation. In contrast, some states—particularly Brazil and the USA, the worlds leading bioethanol producers—continue to promote biofuel development, especially in developing countries. Partnerships arising from these efforts, we argue, reflect new patterns in the international political economy, where trade relationships among developing countries are strengthening, and where economic lines between developed and emerging developing countries are blurring. Given previously observed patterns of resource exploitation involving complex webs of North–South and South–South trade (such as for resources like palm oil in Indonesia), we anticipate that the emerging political economy of biofuels will repeat and reinforce many of these same environmentally destructive trends.

The Rise of Brazil as a Global Development Power

Abstract Brazils influence is rising quickly in international affairs. Unlike those of China and India, its foreign policy relies heavily on non-military power—a characteristic of Brazil since at least the early 20th century. A mainstay of this policy has been the pursuit of ‘development’ for Brazil and the global South, with domestic discourse on the need to ‘develop’ buttressing this approach. Foreign policy under President Lula (2003–10) did this explicitly; President Rousseff (2011–) shows no signs of changing course. This article analyses three foreign policy issues—South–South cooperation, health, and environment—to demonstrate the use and assess the value of this strategy. Not only is the strategy serving Brazils national interests well, the analysis reveals, but it is also benefitting other developing countries (albeit asymmetrically), reinforcing Brazils capacity to influence international affairs.

The Problem of Consumption

One of the biggest challenges for global environmental governance is the problem of consumption. The task involves far more than simply influencing what consumers choose, use, and discard. It requires a concerted effort to address the systemic driversincluding advertising, economic growth, technology, income inequality, corporations, population growth, and globalizationthat shape the quantities, costs, and distribution of consumer goods. Current efforts to green consumption are improving management on many measures, such as per unit energy and resource use. Yet, this essay argues, such progress needs to be seen in the context of a rising global population and rising per capita consumption, where states and companies displace much of the costs of consumption far from those who are doing most of the consuming. This raises many questions about the value of sub-global measures for evaluating the environmental effectiveness of efforts to govern consumption. It also suggests the need for more global cooperation to mitigate the ecological effects of consumption. Current international initiatives such as the Marrakech process to draft a 10-Year Framework on sustainable production and consumption, however, will need to go well beyond simply promoting efficiencies, new technologies, and a greening of household consumption. Researchers in global environmental politics can assist here by probing even further into the complexity of governing the drivers and consequences of consumption, then working to thread these findings into the international policy process.

The Prospects and Limits of Eco-Consumerism: Shopping Our Way to Less Deforestation?

Firms and governments are increasingly turning to voluntary programs such as eco-certification and eco-labeling as core instruments for managing forests. To probe the prospects and limits of this shift toward eco-consumerism as a mechanism for global change, this article analyzes its value for improving forest management globally. It reveals that eco-consumerism is improving some aspects; yet, for both supply and demand-side reasons, the advances are incremental and unequal and overall doing little to slow deforestation. The article therefore highlights the danger of overestimating the potential of voluntary eco-certification and advances a set of policy and management solutions to enhance the effectiveness of eco-consumer initiatives such as forest certification. Solutions include internal incremental adjustments to certification programs, coordinated alongside more fundamental external systemic changes in the marketing, industrial use, and valuation of the world’s forests.

Big retail and sustainable coffee: A new development studies research agenda

Over the past five years, global retail chains such as Walmart, McDonald’s and Starbucks have accelerated their efforts to source and sell coffee ‘sustainably’. Whereas ethical and environmental concerns were the intended drivers of fair trade and organic coffee uptake among the big coffee roasters, now multinational retailers are strategically embracing ‘sustainable coffee’ to build brand reputation and consumer trust as well as enhance quality and profitability. This new trend among mass retailers is transforming the social and environmental governance of coffee production and revealing several critical emerging areas of development studies research regarding the impact of big retail power.

Dying of Consumption: Accidents or Sacrifices of Global Morality?

Private consumption expenditures are now more than 4 times higher than in 1960. The globalization of ever-more growth and consumption has come, however, at a price: global chains of cause-and-effect that obscure social, environmental and ethical responsibility. The result in practice is a global order that accepts the deaths of millions of young people in dangerous and unhealthy environments as tragic, but largely unavoidable, accidents of economic progress. The history of what most call traffic accidents is revealing. The hope at the 1896 inquest into the first accidental death was this would never happen again. But hope is not action. Today, traffic injures as many as 50 million and kills over one million people ever year. It is, however, no accident that tragedies like these are accidents rather than sacrifices, as such language softens criticism of the moral, social and ecological crises arising from the current global consumptive order.

The Power of Big Box Retail in Global Environmental Governance: Bringing Commodity Chains Back into IR

This article focuses on analysing the consequences for global governance of the growing power of the world’s biggest retailers, illustrating with the case of global forest governance. It argues that the rising power of big retail within global commodity chains is creating both significant challenges — and some opportunities — for global environmental governance. The analysis suggests a need for IR to focus more on the shifting political power of multinational corporations, as both barriers to, and progress in, the governance of complex global issues such as deforestation and climate change increasingly occur in the corporate sphere. More specifically, the authors see great value in bringing research on globalising commodity chains back into IR, first revealing the power dynamics within these chains, then building on this to analyse the implications for global change and world politics. This reinforces and complements the message in Bernstein et al. (in this volume) that understanding the future of global climate governance must include the complex interactions between transnational governance practices and interstate negotiations. But it also suggests a need for IR scholars to go even further to unpack the consequences of how the shifting power dynamics of governance practices within the corporate sphere are intersecting — or running parallel — with more overarching multilateral and transnational environmental processes.

GLOBALISATION AND DEFORESTATION IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC

Over the last 30 years, the number of global environmental agreements and non‐governmental organisations has proliferated, and international organisations, states, societies, corporations, and communities have, to differing degrees, been influenced by environmental values. Yet the global spread of environmental ideas has been uneven, contributing to important changes in some areas and minimal changes in others. This article examines the impact of the globalisation of environmentalism ‐ including the globalisation of environmental ideas and attitudes, international agreements and institutions, international and local non‐governmental organisations, and environmental sections within states ‐ on commercial tropical timber management in the Asia‐Pacific. It argues that the environmental rhetoric surrounding forest management has shifted. This has contributed to some government policy reforms. However, few concrete changes to logging practices have occurred in areas that still retain large commercial forests, ...

The Social Cost of Environmental Solutions

This article assesses the social consequences of efforts by multinational corporations to capture business value through recycling, reusing materials and reducing waste. Synthesising evidence from the global environmental justice and feminist and international political economy (IPE) literatures, it analyses the changing social property relations of global recycling chains. The authors argue that, although recycling more would seem to make good ecological sense, corporate programmes can rely on and further ingrain social patterns of harm and exploitation, particularly for the burgeoning labour force that depends on recyclables for subsistence living. Turning the waste stream into a profit stream also relies on prison labour in some places, such as in the United States where the federal government operates one of the countrys largest electronics recycling programmes. The ongoing corporatisation of recycling, the authors argue further, is devaluing already marginalised populations within the global economy. Highlighting the need to account for the dynamism between social and environmental change within IPE scholarship, the article concludes by underlining the ways in which ‘green commerce’ programmes can shift capitals contradictions from nature onto labour.