Environmental Kuznets curves—real progress or passing the buck ...

188
D.S. Rothman / Ecological Economics 25 (1998) 177–194
Fig. 5. Net pollution exports—sulfur dioxide 1987 (Antweiler, 1996).
versus income levels, and neither study finds support
for the EKC hypothesis. de Bruyn and Opschoor
(1997) briefly discuss trade and import
substitution, but do not incorporate it into their
analysis.
5. Better measures of environmental impact
If one accepts the arguments to this point, the
question then arises—what are appropriate, or at
least better, measures of environmental impact?
Ekins (1997) examines an aggregate indicator developed
by the OECD which includes: (1) CO 2 ,
SO 2 ,NO x emissions per capita; (2) water abstraction
per capita; (3) percentage of population with
sewage treatment; (4) protected areas as a percentage
of total area; (5) imports of tropical timber
and cork; (6) threatened species of mammals
and birds as a percentage of all such species in the
country; (7) generation of municipal solid waste
per capita; (8) energy intensity (primary energy
per unit of GDP); (9) private road transport
(passenger kilometers in private vehicles per capita);
and (10) nitrate fertilizer application per km 2
of arable land and permanent cropland. As might
be expected, examining the relationship between
this indicator and income levels, Ekins finds no
support for the EKC hypothesis.
Is it possible to go further to more explicitly
and completely link a measure of environmental
impact to consumption? The study has presented
various data on consumption and the net trade.
These data lend no support to the EKC hypothesis
when examined as a function of income level.
They make no adjustment, however, for differences
in the ways in which these goods and services
are produced, transported, used and
ultimately disposed of in different countries and
over time. With an increasingly globalized economy,
it could be argued that the inter-country
differences are small enough as to be insignificant.
Even if this were to be accepted, though, there
would still be the question of how the environmental
impacts have changed over time and how
they differ across goods, services and resources, so