Environmental concerns in developing countries

The debates about how the developing economies of China and India are contributing to the increasing environmental concerns is never ending. However in this blog the intention is to put forward a few aspects in favor of the developing countries which I have seen as much more not evident.

@ the cost of economic development - India and China are possibly the two largest economies with a large capacity in recent times to purchase more automotive, expand their industries and "catch up" with missed boat of industrial revolution and economic development (Which the western economies have taken successfully taken - resulting in existing environmental concerns). Though the western world is fighting the issues of environmental sustainability, developing countries are fighting other priorities (Reducing hunger & poverty, wealth redistribution through employment creation). With increased pressure on just setting measures for developing countries to reduce environmental impacts western countries and international bodies should think about how to reduce environmental impacts without sacrificing economic growth. So the question for developing countries is not How to reduce environmental impact? but how to reduce environmental impact without sacrificing economic growth?

Screwed measures - One of the measure used on a global scale to measure environmental impact is the amount of carbon produced by each country. Even though China and USA comes at the top, there seems to be something fishy with the measure. Instead of the C02 emissions per country what would be an appropriate measure is the CO2 emissions per capita (meaning CO2 emitted per person in each country) in which developed countries would be having a higher environmental impact than developing countries.

Produced locally and consumed locally - In all the developed countries food comes from around the world for catering to the need for variety to customers. Its not uncommon to see in retail stores of Europe the Kiwi fruits from New Zealand, Meat from Australia, Grapes and other tropical from Peru/South America. The food miles travelled by these products are far higher than the food miles in developing countries. In developing countries food and grain are locally produced and consumed ( Thanks to the poor logistics infrastructure, lack of cold storage facilities and inability to industrialize food production), making them much more environmentally friendly.

Innovation is the key - concerns exists about waste water disposal, lack of clean water in the future, transportation infrastructure, product usage & disposal. When developing countries are in the process of improving or installing new infrastructure (transportation, building, waste disposal) developing countries have a better scope to be much more environmentally friendly than in developed countries (Given they understand and accept the importance of environmental friendliness).

It is everyones problem - Developing countries are increasingly made as the factories of the world. There will be little debate for the claim that "China is the factory of the world", "India as the IT hub of the world". While these global clusters are being formulated, developed countries naturally take the roles of supply chain orchestration, product & services development, technology development and customer satisfaction. Even though there are arguments that developing countries are substantially affecting environment, the impacts are global (like global warming). Hence the problem resolution has to be global rather than pushing the problem to specific developing countries/regions.