Page:Brundtland Report.djvu/91

 been more successful than developing ons in seeing to it that export product prices reflect the costs of environmental damage and of controlling that damage. Thus in the case of exports from industrial countries, these costs are paid by consumers in importing nations. including those in the Third World But in the case of exports from developing countries such costs continue to be borne entirely domestically, largely in the form of damage costs to human health, property, and ecosystems.

53. In 1980 the industries of developing countries exporting to OECD members would have incurred direct pollution control costs of $5.5 billion if they had been required to meet the environmental standard then prevailing in the United States, according to a study conducted for this Commission. If the pollution control expenditure associated with the materials went into the final product are also counted, the costs would have mounted to $14.2 billion. The evidence also suggests that OECD imports from developing countries involve products that entail higher average environmental and resource damage costs than do overall OECD imports. These hypothetical pollution control cost probably understate the real costs of environmental and resource damage in the exporting countries. Furthermore, these costs relate only to environmental pollution and not to the economic damage cost associated with resource depletion. /…