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We discuss and elaborate upon the theory of cross-national ecological unequal exchange. Drawing upon world-systems theoretical propositions, ecological unequal exchange refers to the increasingly disproportionate utilization of ecological systems and externalization of negative environmental costs by core industrialized countries and, consequentially, declining utilization opportunities and imposition of exogenous environmental burdens within the periphery. We provide a descriptive overview of theoretical and empirical efforts to date examining this issue. Ecological unequal exchange provides a framework for conceptualizing how the socioeconomic metabolism or material throughput of core countries may negatively impact more marginalized countries in the global economy. It focuses attention upon the global uneven fl ow of energy, natural resources, and waste products of industrial activity. Further, the recognition of the distributional processes of ecological unequal exchange is relevant to considerations of both the socioeconomic and environmental imperatives underlying the pursuit of sustainable development, as it contributes to underdevelopment within the periphery of the world-system. We conclude by highlighting the interconnections between uneven natural resource fl ows, global environmental change, and the challenge of broad-based sustainable development.

This article introduces a Special Section on Ecologically Unequal Exchange (EUE), an underlying source of most of the environmental distribution conflicts in our time. The nine articles discuss theories, methodologies, and empirical case studies pertaining to ecologically unequal exchange, and address its relationship to ecological debt.Key words: Ecologically Unequal Exchange, ecological debt, political ecology This is the introductory article in Alf Hornborg and Joan Martinez-Alier (eds.) 2016. "Ecologically unequal exchange and ecological debt", Special Section of the Journal of Political Ecology 23: 328-491.

This article introduces a Special Section on Ecologically Unequal Exchange (EUE), an underlying source of most of the environmental distribution conflicts in our time. The nine articles discuss theories, methodologies, and empirical case studies pertaining to ecologically unequal exchange, and address its relationship to ecological debt.Key words: Ecologically Unequal Exchange, ecological debt, political ecology This is the introductory article in Alf Hornborg and Joan Martinez-Alier (eds.) 2016. "Ecologically unequal exchange and ecological debt", Special Section of the Journal of Political Ecology 23: 328-491.

This article introduces a Special Section on Ecologically Unequal Exchange (EUE), an underlying source of most of the environmental distribution conflicts in our time. The nine articles discuss theories, methodologies, and empirical case studies pertaining to ecologically unequal exchange, and address its relationship to ecological debt.

Ecological debt is usually conceptualized as the accumulated result of different kinds of uneven flows of natural resources and waste, but these flows are seldom referred to as ecologically unequal exchange. Ecologically unequal exchange, on the other hand, is usually defined as different flows of resources and waste, but the accumulated results of these flows are seldom referred to as ecological debt. In this article, influential definitions and conceptualizations of ecological debt and ecologically unequal exchange are compared and the notions linked together analytically with a stock-flow perspective. A particular challenge is presented by emissions of substances that have global consequences, most importantly carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. They form part of ecologically unequal exchange, but what is unequal is not the exchange of resources or energy, but the appropriation of the sinks that absorb these substances. New concepts, unequal sink appropriation and the more specific carbon sink appropriation are proposed as a way of highlighting this distinction.Key words: ecological debt, ecologically unequal exchange, unequal sink appropriation, carbon sink appropriation

AbstractIn this article, we review the theory of ecologically unequal exchange and its relevance for global environmental injustice. According to this theory, global political–economic factors, especially the structure of international trade, shape the unequal distribution of environmental harms and human development; wealthier and more powerful Global North nations have disproportionate access to both natural resources and sink capacity for waste in Global South nations. We discuss how the theory has roots in multiple perspectives on development, world‐systems analysis, environmental sociology, and ecological economics. We detail research that tests hypotheses derived from ecological unequal exchange theory on several environmental harms, including deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, and water pollution as well as related human well‐being outcomes. We also discuss research on social forces that counter the harmful impacts of ecologically unequal exchange, including institutions, organizations, and environmental justice movements. We suggest that ecologically unequal exchange theory provides an important global political–economic approach for research in environmental sociology and other environmental social sciences as well as for sustainability studies more broadly.

In this compilation thesis, consisting of six papers and an introductory chapter, the concepts of ecological debt, climate debt, ecologically unequal exchange, and unequal carbon sink appropriation are at the centre. Their intellectual and political histories are traced to environmental justice movements, ecological economics and neo-Marxist economics. They are developed conceptually and linked together analytically using a stock-flow perspective. Special concern is devoted to climate debt as understood by the climate justice movement. Its claims on climate debt are identified, their normative assumptions tested and climate debt is quantified as consisting of both an emission debt and an adaptation debt. The last paper focus on a historical case study, where a method for measuring ecologically unequal exchange – time-space appropriation – is applied to discuss core and peripheries in the early modern world system, indicating a Sinocentric world economy. In the introductory chapter, sections on critical realism and mixed methods research position the thesis theoretically and methodologically. The concepts at the centre of the thesis are synthesized into what is called an ecological-economic asymmetries approach. Further, the possibilities to base the approach on ecological Marxism and historical-geographical materialism are explored and a potential future research strategy sketched.

This article examines the relationship between humanitarian aid and ecologically unequal exchange in the context of post-disaster reconstruction. I assess the manner in which humanitarian aid became a central part of the reconstruction process in India's Tamil Nadu state following the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. This article focuses on how the humanitarian "gift" of housing became a central plank of the state's efforts to push fishers inland while opening up coastal lands for various economic development projects such as ports, infrastructure, industries, and tourism. As part of the state and multilateral agency financed reconstruction process, the humanitarian aid regime provided "free" houses as gifts to recipients while expecting in return the formal abandonment of all claims to the coast. The humanitarian "gift" therefore helped depoliticize critical issues of land and resources, location and livelihood, which prior to the tsunami were subjects of long-standing political conflicts between local fisher populations and the state. The gift economy in effect played into an ongoing conflict over land and resources and effectively sought to ease the alienation of fishers from their coastal commons and near shore marine resource base. I argue that humanitarian aid, despite its associations with benevolence and generosity, presents a troubling and disempowering set of options for political struggles over land, resources, and social entitlements such as housing, thereby intensifying existing ecological and economic inequalities.

Globalization significantly influences climate change. Ecological modernization theory and world polity theory suggest that globalization reduces carbon dioxide emissions worldwide by facilitating economic, political, social, and cultural homogenization, whereas ecological unequal exchange theory indicates that cumulative economic and political disparities lead to an uneven distribution of emissions in developed and less developed countries. This study addresses this controversy and systematically investigates the extent to which different dimensions of globalization influence carbon emissions in developed and less developed countries by treating globalization as a dynamic historical process involving economic, political, and social/cultural dimensions in a long-term, cross-national context. Drawing on data for 137 countries from 1970 to 2014, we find that while globalization, social and cultural globalization in particular, has enabled developed countries to significantly decrease their carbon emissions, it has led to more emissions in less developed countries, lending support to the ecological unequal exchange theory. Consistent with world polity theory, international political integration has contributed to carbon reductions over time. We highlight the internal tension between environmental conservation and degradation in a globalizing world and discuss the opportunities for less developed countries to reduce emissions.

International audience ; Although Germany is one of the largest timber importers in the world, scholars have paid little attention to the German role in the history of globalized timber markets. Focusing on one commodity in particular, the Christmas tree, the article intends to shed new light on the German exploitation of Central European forests within the theoretical framework of the unequal ecological exchange. It shows how foreign trade with Habsburg Galicia was used by Germany in order to get rid of the socio-environmental burdens of tree extraction. During the 1900's, Galicia provided each year at least several tens of thousand, maybe a few hundred thousand Chrismas trees for the German market. Increasing forest degradation and the socio-political struggle over the issue of timber exports in Galicia shows that the environmental and social costs of this trade were much higher than the fi nancial benefi ts. Unlike other countries in Nothern and Eastern Europe, Galicia did not succeed in regulating its timber exports because of political divisions and economic weakness. Ultimately, Christmas tree export from Galicia to Germany confi rms the peripheral status of this territory within the world-system and provides an historical example of the resource consumption/environmental degradation paradox.