Abstract
Human land use is the main driver of terrestrial biodiversity loss. It has been argued that producers and consumers have a shared responsibility for biodiversity loss because this land use is directly and indirectly driven by the local and global demand for products. Such responsibility sharing would be an important step for global biodiversity cooperation and conservation. Here, we use a global multiregional input-output framework to estimate consumption-based biodiversity loss, integrating with both the physical Food and Agriculture Biomass Input-Output (FABIO) dataset and a global monetary input-output table (EXIOBASE). We use an environmental justice framework for assigning biodiversity loss responsibility between producers and consumers. In this framework, we employ the Human Development Index (HDI) as a proxy of the weighting parameter for both producers and consumers. An environmental justice perspective may provide a fairer distribution of responsibility in a world where different nations have very different capabilities and see varying benefits from international trade. Environmentally just accounting increases the footprint of the Global North compared to other common approaches for sharing responsibility across all producers and consumers along international supply chains. We describe how environmental justice may inform cooperation in biodiversity protection between stakeholders along global supply chains.
Highlights
Environmental inequalities threaten health and wellbeing, economic development, and social cohesion (Mohai et al, 2009; Sze and London, 2008)
Per-capita consumption-based plant and vertebrate loss are quite similar between the Global South and Global North at 0.7 × 10− 6 and 0.3 × 10− 6, compared to 1.0 × 10− 6 and 0.3 × 10− 6, respectively (Fig. 1 B, E). 56% and 73% of the consumption-based plant and vertebrate losses of the Global North is from imported products from all regions as opposed to domestically produced products, compared to 14% and 16% in the Global South
In terms of biodiversity loss flows from the Global South to the Global North, 40% and 63% of the consumption-based plant and vertebrate losses of the Global North is embodied in the imported commodities from the Global South
Summary
Environmental inequalities threaten health and wellbeing, economic development, and social cohesion (Mohai et al, 2009; Sze and London, 2008). There are significant environmental justice issues at a larger scale (Mohai et al, 2009; Sze and London, 2008), for example, biodiversity loss due to land use across the world is often linked to demand across a globalized trade system (Boillat et al, 2020). The example depicts the concept of telecoupling that describes how socio economic and environmental impacts are connected across large dis tances (Liu et al, 2013). Given the fact that trade networks can embed economic and environmental inequalities, some researchers have sug gested telecoupling studies should incorporate environmental justice perspectives wherever possible (Boillat et al, 2020)
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