What are the environmental consequences of global networks and flows, and how can they be managed?
Evaluate the environmental consequences of global flows of goods, people and production
A focused WACE Year 12 Geography answer on the environmental consequences of globalisation. Covers shipping and aviation emissions, displaced pollution and e-waste, resource extraction, and management responses with real examples.
Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed
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What this dot point is asking
SCSA wants you to connect the flows of globalisation to their environmental costs, explain why those costs are spatially displaced, and evaluate management responses. A strong answer links the network concept directly to environmental outcomes.
Emissions from global transport
The freight that underpins global trade runs on carbon-intensive transport. International shipping and aviation together produce a significant share of global greenhouse emissions, and because they cross borders they have historically fallen outside national targets. The sheer scale of containerised trade means that moving goods around the world carries a large and growing climate footprint.
Displaced pollution and the pollution of production
When manufacturing relocates to lower-cost economies, the pollution of production relocates with it. High-income consumers effectively offshore their environmental impact: the emissions and pollution embedded in their goods are released in producing countries such as China and Vietnam. This is why a country can appear to cut its own emissions while its consumption-based footprint stays high.
Resource extraction and ecosystems
Global demand drives resource extraction with heavy local impact: deforestation for palm oil and soy, water depletion, mining disturbance, and overfishing of shared seas. Because demand and impact are separated, consumers rarely see the environmental cost of what they buy.
Managing transboundary impacts
Because global networks separate cause from effect across borders, management depends on international cooperation. Responses include the Paris Agreement on emissions, the Basel Convention restricting hazardous-waste exports, agreements limiting shipping and aviation emissions, and private supply-chain standards and certification such as sustainable palm oil or timber. Consumer awareness and product labelling shift some pressure back toward the consuming end.
A balanced answer recognises that the environmental costs of globalisation are real and unevenly distributed, that they are hard to govern because they cross jurisdictions, and that effective responses must act along the whole network rather than within single countries.