Authors : 1Mohammed Shamim Uddin Khan , 2Tanvir Mohammad Hayder Arif and 3Mohammed Shahedul Quader
Abstract: The aim of this article is to present a normative enquiry of market-based solutions to global warming based on a moderate version of environmentalism that expands the compromise of sustainable development. The central argument is that while market-based solutions may be economically beneficial, they are also unethical or unjust instruments entrenched in classical market orthodoxy and the neo-liberal discourse that encourage unrestricted economic growth. Furthermore, market-based solutions defend the economically and politically dominant position of industrialised countries, undermining global justice for environmental inequality between the North and South. The first step in the enquiry exposes the deficiencies of classical market orthodoxy for a policy for global warming. The second step hypotesises an environmental dependence between the North and South that follows the rational of structural dependency theoryand enhances global environmental inequality. The final step analyses the dilemma of market-based solutions that, in the form of an emissions trading system, promote sustainable development but also expose the unavoidable global justice in a world of global environmental inequality.
1Mohammed Shamim Uddin Khan , 2Tanvir Mohammad Hayder Arif and 3Mohammed Shahedul Quader , 2004. Capitalism and Environmentalism in North-South Relations . Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, 2: 229-235.