Environmental Issues

Environmental issues defintion

the negative impacts and harm that human activities cause to the natural environment.

Planetary boundaries definition and ones that have been crossed/not crossed

• the physical and ecological boundaries defined by earths system science.

• Crossed Boundaries: climate change, biodiversity, land-system change, freshwater, novel entities, biogechemical cycles

• Remaing Boundaries: ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol loading

Climate change defintion and its 3 impacts

The long-term, sustained change in global climate patterns ususally caused by human acitivities

Impact on natural sytstem:

• Increased greenhouse gas emmisions leads to excessive global warming, sea level rise, and a rise in the frequencey and scale of extreme weather events.

Constraints global economic development:

• Physical risks: disrupts business operations, threatens water and food supply

• Transaction risks: increased policy regulations and technological change burdens, raising costs and restructurung business models.

Extreme weather examples in the UK and the IPPC’s sixth assessment report (2021)

• 2019 - present there has beene 70 extreme events. 2010-2018, only 23 events.

• Safe: 1.5 degrees

• Acceptable: 2 degrees

• Dangerous: 3 degrees, would inundate 1.79 million square Km, effecting 150m people

• Diaster: 4 degrees, would inundate 2.12 million square Km.

Physical Risk definition and features

risks directly caused by extreme weather and natural disasters resulting from climate change.

impacts are more direct and obvious than transitational risks, large impacts on specific industries or regions

Transitional risks and features

the transition of the world toward a low-carbon economy and the cliamte risks associated with actions taken.

this includes policy risks, legal risks and technology risks. Can effect entire markets, not directly cause by climate change.

Table to summarise climate change risks

Opportunity in the EV space

• 50% of sales were EV in car market in 2025 (China), EU targeting 50% in 2030.

• China lack domestic oil and gas but has abundant coal. 70% oil is imported so switching to EV lowers costs and reduces geopolitical risks. China also dominates rare earth processing, critical for EV motors.