Understanding the relationship between globalization and biophysical resource consumption within safe operating limits for major Belt and Road Initiative countries

Over the past few years, a growing number of scholars have explored environmental deterioration and its connection to various indicators acting as proxies for growth and globalisation. Taking this into view, the current study examines the globalisation-environment nexus, using 66 major countries and administrative regions of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as case studies for 2000-2015. For this analysis, six biophysical resource usages were used within the safe operating space of the planetary boundary concept as proxies for the environmental state, along with the four main and five sub-indices of the Konjunkturforschungsstelle (KOF) globalisation index. Pearson's correlation, hierarchical clustering, redundancy analysis, linear regression, autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) forecasting, etc. were used to infer existing trends, the interactions between the environment and globalisation, a projected future, and coupling with safe operating space aspects. The findings reveal the long-run asymmetric relationship of variables. Surpassing safe operating limits to achieve globalisation is the most prominent outcome. Economic, trade, and financial globalisation are more crucially related to biophysical resource usage. Nitrogen use and material footprint act as strong drivers for various indices of globalisation. At least 40% of countries are above the global average resource usage and 50% have crossed all of the safe operating limits. At the present rate, nearly 51% of countries might cross all their safe operating spaces in 2030. In a race to achieve more globalisation (0.95), more than 30% of countries might cross 5 of the 6 planetary boundaries. Land system change, the biogeochemical cycle, and climate change are impending as the most important domains to be focused on regarding globalisation. Based on the findings, it can be recommended that governments and policymakers devote more attention to reframing and redesigning globalisation to be more environment friendly to achieve long-term sustainable development goals.

Automated summary

This study examines the relationship between globalization and the environment using case studies of 66 countries and administrative regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative. The findings reveal an asymmetric relationship between the variables, with surpassing safe operating limits for the sake of globalization being the most prominent outcome. Economic, trade, and financial globalization are closely related to biophysical resource usage. The study calls for a reframing and redesigning of globalization to be more environmentally friendly and achieve long-term sustainable development goals.