Planning Industrial Location: A Fuzzy Model for Preventing Disastrous Overconcentration of Industries

Abstract

In 2012, Leo Hickman said about the 2012United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP18): "Export of pollution from rich countries moves Climate Conference‖ (HICKMAN, The Guardian, 2012). The Conference resumed the ideas popularized by the World Bank at the end of the last century about the export of pollution to poor and developing countries (MIRANDA, 2012).In fact, those ideas of pollution transfer to poor and developing countries resurfaced (WORLD BANK, 1991).According to such ideas, export of pollution should be an international policy. On the other hand, authorities and planners in the least developed countries tend to see the implantation of industries as a sort of panacea, as capable to promote and accelerate economic development, by creating job opportunities and wealth. This has favored the implantation of pollutant industries in peripheral economies and, as a result, has made the proposed pollution transfer strategy a reality. The World Health Organization (WHO) strictly established the maximum permissible levels of pollution. According to WHO, about 92% of the world's population live in places that do not meet minimum air quality conditions, resulting in thousands of deaths (BBC, 2016).The major concern of WHO is the frequent disruption of those standards as authorities tend to adopt instead local or regional standards. The local or regional standards are established to meet the interests of incentive policies whose economic justifications are questionable. From the WHO's point of view, urgent government action is necessary to mitigate no communicable diseases: Urgent government action is needed to meet global targets to reduce the burden of no communicable diseases (NCDs), and prevent the annual toll of 16 million people dying