North America: The Region’s Ecological Debt and Creation of Global Connections

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North America: The Region’s Ecological Debt and Creation of Global Connections

North America is a continent that lies almost within the Western Hemisphere and entirely within the Northern Hemisphere. North America is one of the regions in the world that is holds a huge ecological debt[1][2]. The Northern industrialized nations and their allies and institutions in the Southern countries have responsibility and an obligation to the peoples and the countries in the Third World, as a result of using and looting natural resources at the expense of displacement of peoples, cost of human energy as well as devastation, destruction, and pollution of natural heritage, sources of sustenance, and culture (Paredis et al. 2008). The focus of this essay is to discuss the global connections associated with the ecological debt of North America, which include provision of foreign aid, outsourcing and exportation of materials and goods, international cooperation for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and carbon trading.

            Carbon debt and ecological debt may perhaps be used to justify the responsibility and obligation of North America to provide aid to poor countries. North American countries are associated with greater environmental costs of human activities in aspects such as stratospheric ozone depletion, climate change, overfishing, deforestation, agricultural intensification and expansion, and mangrove conversion, which make the region indebted to other regions in aspects such as food aid (Warlenius et al. 2015).  United States is one of the leading countries from North America that delivers food aid to poor countries. U.S. food aid is delivered to countries such as Kenya through the transoceanic shipment networks. Shipment of U.S. food aid has reduced child mortality from 4.4% to 3.7% in Northern Kenya. Other countries such as China and Brazil also play a role in the global food aid supply; although the U.S. remains as the leading provider of food aid in the world (Nikulkov et al. 2018). The U.S. contributes more than 40% of the global food aid that is shipped to other countries or regions. Recently, the U.S. has supplied food aid to displaced persons and refugees in Somalia, Nigeria, Yemen, and South Sudan (Lentz et al. 2017).

            North America is also associated with high ecological footprint[3] compared to other regions such as Africa as such North America procures for other materials it needs from other countries, thus, creating global connections (World Economic Forum 2015). The U.S. top export goods include helicopters, planes, spacecraft, cars, refined petroleum, integrated circuits, and gas turbines; whereas top import goods include computers, crude petroleum, vehicle parts, cars, and package medications. The U.S. top import origins include Mexico ($289B), China ($436B), Japan ($129B), Canada ($268B), and Germany ($113B). On the other hand, top U.S. exports destinations include  Mexico ($179B), Canada ($207B), Germany ($60.2B), Japan ($65.5B), and China ($122B) (OEC United States, 2018). North America is characterized by a much higher ecological footprint than other regions in the world (Lin et al. 2018). If the entire world was using water and land just like what North America does at the present, the current world population could have required approximately 3.9 Earths in order to sustain it (World Economic Forum 2015).

            Being a key contributor to carbon emissions and impact on climate change, North America has joined a global network in an effort to lower global greenhouse gas emissions. On 2016 Earth Day, the United States joined other 175 countries of the world in signing of the popularly known United Nations Paris climate agreement. The goal of the agreement and signing was to help reduce the rate of global greenhouse gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism has established the certified emission reduction credits for supporting voluntary emission reduction projects (Lilliston 2016).  In 2009, Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) was established as a cap-and-trade scheme. The scheme covers ten Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states. The scheme caps emissions, especially from the power sector. RGGI provides and actions emission rights among the power generators in North America (Lentz et al. 2017).

            The North America’s huge ecological debt has contributed to the establishment and growth of the emission trading. Emission of trade, also referred to as cap-and-trade is a market based strategy for controlling pollution through provision of economic incentives for emission reductions. However, there are challenges associated with the emissions trade. The key challenge is that some jurisdictions such as the United States are in favor of the safety valves; however, some jurisdictions, especially the European Union, do not support the safety valve concept. As such, there is need for harmonization of the cost containment mechanism in an effort to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions (Lilliston 2016).

            In conclusion, North American huge ecological debt may have played a role in establishment of global connections with the world. The U.S. has emerged and remains the global leader in provision of food aid to poor countries and parts of the world. On the other hand, North America ecological debt is also associated with a large ecological footprint thus it needs to import some materials and items to feed its consumption. As such, import and export trade as created global connections. In addition, the U.S. has formed global connections or membership with other countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to mitigate climate change.

[1] Ecological debt is defined as the accumulated debt in wealthier countries as a result of exploitation of resources of poorer countries, natural habitat, free occupation of space in the environment for waste discharge, and/or beggaring of local people (Paredis et al. 2008).

[2] In other words, ecological debt is defined as the responsibility and obligation that Northern industrialized nations and their allies and institutions in the Southern countries have to the peoples and the countries in the Third World, as a result of using and looting natural resources at the expense of displacement of peoples, cost of human energy as well as devastation, destruction, and pollution of natural heritage, sources of sustenance, and culture (Paredis et al. 2008).

[3] Ecological foot print is defined as the area of water and land that it takes for a given human population to generate renewable resources that are required for consumption as well as to absorb resultant waste that is generated (World Economic Forum, 2015).