HL extension: Global risks and resilience practice questions.

In March 2021 a large container ship ran aground in the Suez Canal and blocked it for six days, delaying hundreds of vessels. Which weakness of the global economy did the incident expose?

• The falling share of manufactured goods in world trade
• The shift of container shipbuilding towards Africa
• The replacement of sea freight by air freight on long-distance routes
• The dependence of supply chains on a few narrow chokepoints

Answer: The dependence of supply chains on a few narrow chokepoints

Around a tenth of world seaborne trade is routed through this single canal, so a local, temporary obstruction propagated into delays and cost increases across continents; concentration of routes, not the volume of trade, is the risk.

From January 2020 Indonesia banned exports of unprocessed nickel ore in order to force smelting and battery-grade processing to take place inside the country. This policy is best described as

• offshoring, in which production is moved to a lower-cost location
• trade liberalisation achieved through the removal of export duties and quotas
• resource nationalism, asserting state control over a raw material
• economic sanctions imposed by an outside power

Answer: resource nationalism, asserting state control over a raw material

The state uses sovereignty over a mineral to capture more of the value chain at home, which is the defining move of resource nationalism; sanctions differ because they are imposed from outside rather than chosen by the resource holder.

In May 2017 malicious software spread across computer networks in more than 150 countries, encrypting files on hospital systems in England and demanding payment in Bitcoin before access was restored. Which category of geopolitical and economic risk does this belong to?

• Disruption of a physical supply chain chokepoint
• A cyber-attack, specifically ransomware
• Trafficking of counterfeit pharmaceutical products
• Resource nationalism affecting a strategic material

Answer: A cyber-attack, specifically ransomware

The asset attacked is data rather than goods or territory, and the profit motive works by denying access to it, which is why cyber-security is treated as a risk to individuals and organisations in its own right; the 2017 incident cancelled operations in hospitals that never held the attackers' target data.

Which feature makes the international trade in counterfeit goods attractive to organised criminal networks?

• High profits combine with low rates of detection and light penalties
• Counterfeit goods are exempt from customs inspection under international trade rules
• Imitation goods pay no import duty in the destination market
• Trademark disputes can only be heard where the goods were made

Answer: High profits combine with low rates of detection and light penalties

Counterfeiting combines the margins of illicit trade with sentences far lighter than those for drug or arms offences, so the expected return per unit of risk is high. The other three are common misconceptions: counterfeits are seized at the border like any other prohibited import, they owe the same duty as genuine goods, and brand owners can sue in the market where the goods are sold.

During the 1970s and 1980s many lakes in southern Norway lost their fish populations, although Norway itself burned little coal; the acidifying sulphur compounds had been emitted by power stations in the United Kingdom and central Europe. Which term best describes this situation?

• Localised point-source pollution from a single identified outfall
• Eutrophication caused by nutrient enrichment of the lake water
• Transboundary pollution
• Photochemical smog formed under high-pressure conditions

Answer: Transboundary pollution

Acidifying emissions are carried hundreds of kilometres in the atmosphere before they are deposited, so the state that gains the electricity is not the state that loses the fishery. That mismatch between emitter and victim is why the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution was needed at all.

In 2018 China's 'National Sword' policy sharply restricted imports of low-grade plastic and paper waste. Which immediate consequence did this have for the high-income countries that had been exporting to China?

• Recyclable material accumulated at home or was diverted to other South-East Asian states
• Household recycling rates in the exporting countries rose immediately and permanently as a direct result
• The world price of virgin plastic polymer collapsed
• Exported electronic waste was reclassified as non-hazardous

Answer: Recyclable material accumulated at home or was diverted to other South-East Asian states

The policy removed the cheapest disposal route overnight, so material either piled up or was redirected to states with weaker enforcement; it did not create domestic reprocessing capacity, which takes years to build. It shows how dependent 'recycling' in high-income countries had become on a single overseas destination.