Global Systems

Environmental Interdependence

It is impossible not to notice that the world we live in is linked by the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food that we eat. At the same time the lives that the majority of the world’s people lead impact upon the planet’s ecosystems. The scale, speed and depth of environmental problems has increased in recent decades.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment.

  1. Visit the UNEP website to find out what the UNEP does– describe a minimum of two of its projects.
  2. Study the table of examples of environmental interdependence:

Explain how globalisation influences environmental interdependence

A possible plan:

  • Countries are environmentally interdependent. UNEP is a global organisation that promotes and protects the environment. For example….
  • UNESCO focuses on…
  • Another way in which we are globally interdependent environmentally is via the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The aim of this is to…
  • There is also a global agreement to protect against climate change….
  • Natural hazards at a local level actually have global consequences, for example…

Issue / Examples of Interdependence
Natural Hazards /
  1. Japanese Tsunami 2011 – interrupted supply chains as foreign owned manufacturing companies suffered production set backse.g Ford couldn’t access its sole supplier for paint pigments. Hewlett Packard lost $700m in revenues due to supply chain failure.Smartphone manufacturers had to slow production as Japan supplies 90% of the resins used in the semiconductor industry
  2. Eyjafjallajokull 2010 Kenyan famers went out of business as they couldn’t fly their products to market.
  3. Pakistan Floods 2010 – global cotton prices rose.

Climate Change / The Paris Agreement December 2015 - 195 countries adopted the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal.The agreement sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C. This will replace the Kyoto Agreement that was made in 1997
Hazardous Wastes / CFCs – the ozone hole – resulted in a global agreement to phase out production of CFCs.
Biodiversity / The Svalbard Global seed Vault opened in 2008 – designed to store back- up copies of seeds of the major food crops of the world at minus 18oC due to fears of the rapid reduction in biodiversity.
Marine Environments / Overfishing, ocean pollution and mega-oil spills and illegal dumping of waste are all global concerns –Sustainable Development Goal 14 is to protect the oceans. There is a UN conference in June 2017 focusing on the oceans.
Unique environments /
UNESCO is the United Nations group that protects cultural and natural heritage. Places as unique and diverse as the wilds of East Africa’s Serengeti, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the Baroque cathedrals of Latin America make up our world’s heritage. What makes the concept of World Heritage exceptional is its universal application. World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located.

Extension: Steger, M Globalisation: A very short introduction – Chapter 6