Abstract
Forwarding an ecological dimension to the Murdoch school of political economy, this chapter examines environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change as inseparable parts of the political economy of Southeast Asian development. The chapter first reviews regional environmental indicators of biodiversity loss, air pollution, water degradation, deforestation, and climate change. It then explains this degradation as an intrinsic part of capitalist development in the region, driven by manufacturing, urbanisation, pollution, and increased resource-based production and exports. Finally, the chapter examines several examples of environmental governance efforts that have failed because they do not address the underlying mode of accumulation and fundamental social conflicts. The status quo direction of the region, the chapter concludes, is disastrous ecologically and socially.
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Notes
- 1.
Unfortunately, the World Health Organization defines “Southeast Asia” to include South Asia and does not provide national-level data.
- 2.
The FAO’s definition of forests takes into account designated land uses and is based on various data-gathering methods, including national forest inventories. Global Forest Watch’s definition is purely biophysical (height, canopy cover and extent of trees). Global Forest Watch continues to improve its data collection but also cautions against direct comparison of different years as a result of changing techniques. For a useful discussion of the complex and potentially complementary measures, see Harris et al. (2016).
- 3.
Anthropocene refers to humans changing the geology and climate of the earth, but others dub it the Capitalocene due to capitalism’s impact (see Moore 2016).
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Gellert, P.K. (2020). The Political Economy of Environmental Degradation and Climate Disaster in Southeast Asia. In: Carroll, T., Hameiri, S., Jones, L. (eds) The Political Economy of Southeast Asia. Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28255-4_15
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