For example, the WTO preached that the regulations under the U.S. Clean Air Act, which set high standards against polluting gasoline, did not accommodate with WTO rules. It judged that it was unfair for the foreign oil companies that produced contaminated oil. As a result, the U.S. government rewrote the regulations so that automobiles can give off polluting exhaust. Thus, because of harsh rulings made by the WTO on several environmental acts, many nations are now frightened to contradict the corporations. By not proposing anymore health laws against these corporations, the environment could get worse year by year. .
This also gave advantages to the corporations, since this helps them escape from democratic laws that regulate their activities. The rise in worldwide trade and the increasing interaction between countries previously separated by trade barriers have stimulated a significant increase in transportation progresses at all geographical levels. This has caused a wide variety of threats to the environment, forming a globalization problem. The rise in international transportation could be partly blamed on the transport of food. As more corporations take over most of the aspects of farming, local resources and labors of small farmers are decreasingly vanishing. This causes the people to buy and eat food that are grown overseas instead from the local areas, thus causing and encouraging the amount of international transportation. The transport division is a significant contributor to local air pollution, noise annoyance, intrusion to landscapes, congestion, and high fatality rates. .
Transport also damages the global environment. It is contributing to two main global environmental problems, which are the greenhouse effect and the depletion of the ozone layer. Even though the effects of globalization contributed to many environmental defects, some may argue that free trade will avoid the efficiency losses associated with protection.
