Global Challenge: Environment

This topic provides an opportunity to explore political issues connected to the environment through a case studies approach.
Many of the topics, political issues and key concepts encountered in the core units of the course are also central to discussions of the environment. Many environmental problems transcend national boundaries, and the activities of one country can have direct impact on multiple countries. Mitigation of, and responses to, climate change and other such global environmental challenges involve and require international political cooperation and action. The use of natural resources in the face of growing populations and increasingly resource-heavy lifestyles across the globe raises many political issues—and is increasingly a source of political tensions. The compatibility of economic growth and sustainable development is debated at all levels of politics.

Learning outcomes:
• knowledge and understanding of a specific case study and a specific political issue related to the environment
• application of relevant key concepts, theories and ideas from the core units to analysis of the case
• evaluation of the case study from different perspectives and in the wider context of global politics
• an experience of having carried out a self-directed, teacher-supported research process and communicating the conclusions of this process through an oral presentation.

Examples of case studies
Students must undertake a detailed case study relating to the global political challenge presented by the environment, and deliver an oral presentation focused on a political issue embedded in the case. The case studies and political issues below are examples only.

• Arctic melt—opportunities of and threats to regional political cooperation between Russia and Northern European states

• The 2011 drought and the Yangtze river in China—viability of China’s water diversion plans

• Deforestation in the Gadchiroli district of India—constraints on correcting for an environmental failure in a developing country

• Shale gas production in the USA—influence of environmental NGOs on congressional decision-making

• The carbon offsetting policy of airline A—the role of political decisions at different levels of global politics to bring about such a policy