superpowers-environmental impacts

• environmental degradation disproportionately caused by some countries


  due to high demand of natural resources:

  • water,energy,minerals,land
• why is demand for natural resources high?

  • large populations
  • large number of high income residents
  • economies based on industries that consume alot of energy and raw materials
  • hubs of trade and transportations which requires alot of energy
• environmental issues caused

  • natural areas of land eg forests degraded through practices like mining or deforestation
  • ecologically sensitive areas of land exploited for unconventional sources of energy eg USA fracking for shale gas
  • water sources polluted via inefficient farming practice eg oil spills, chemical fertilisers
  • poor air quality due to older energy technology, China has 1100 coal powered stations
• why some countries have very large emissions

  • superpowers and emerging powers highest because high levels of consumerism, large markets for goods produced in other countries
  • transportation of these goods eg containerisation very demand on fuel- produce high levels of CO2 emissions
  • USA largest producer of co2 until 2000. china overtook when going through period of rapid industrialisation- burning of fossil fuels
• EU- tackling carbon emissions

  • kyoto protocol aimed to reduce emissions from industrialised nations and showed how countries were trying to address
  • EU countries reduced their CO2 emissions by 32% between 1990 and 2020
• growth of emerging powers=enviro concerns

  • undergoing rapid urbanisation and industrialisation- rapid environmental degredation
  • demand for higher wages increase as higher skilled=growing middle class
  • consuming more manufactured goods eg cars, increasing demand of fossil fuels to manufacture and transport goods
  • changing diet= intensive farming practices=pesticides and fertilisers polluting water and land
  • demand for water increases as pop grows= overabstraction of groundwater stores eg aquifers