Nature Dependent Trade
The invasion of Ukraine has pushed sovereign states to reflect on the types of governments with which they trade. Recently, many democratic governments have been assessing their sources of non-renewable natural capital trade – notably oil & gas as well as metals & ores.
Planet Tracker has developed a dashboard that maps the trade of key renewable agricultural exports to their sources by political systems. Most exposed to disruption from non-democratic states are cotton, fish and cereals, in descending order. Meat could be vulnerable if feedstock supplies were impacted.
How to use the dashboard:
Select a tab in the top bar and hover your mouse over the bar charts to examine individual countries data.
The first three tabs show aggregated categories:
- All Nature Dependent (Renewable and Non-Renewable) goods
- Nature Dependent (Renewable only) goods
- Nature Dependent (Non-Renewable only) goods
The subsequent tabs show individual categories.
Planet Tracker has used the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Democracy Index.
The Democracy Index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. Based on scores on a range of indicators within these categories, each country is then classified as one of four types of regime:
- full democracy
- flawed democracy
- hybrid regime
- authoritarian regime
Planet Tracker has classified full democracy and flawed democracy as ‘democratic’ and hybrid regime and authoritarian as ‘non-democratic’.