HL extension · Global challenges and case synthesis

IB Diploma Programme Global Politics HL (the guide first assessed in 2026). This topic covers the HL extension 高级程度拓展, which only HL students study. It looks at global political challenges 全球性政治挑战: problems such as climate change, pandemics and forced migration 移民, which cross borders and which no state can solve alone. You research real, recent cases of these challenges. Paper 3 (1 hour 30 minutes, 30% of the HL grade) gives you stimulus 材料 material and asks you to analyse the challenges using the cases you have researched.

In August 2022 heavy monsoon rain and melting glaciers put about one third of Pakistan under water. More than 1,700 people died and about 33 million were affected. The floods destroyed crops and homes, spread disease, and pushed millions of people into poverty. Pakistan produces less than 1% of the world's greenhouse gases, yet it suffered some of the worst effects. One event joined four challenges: environment, health, poverty and equality. Paper 3 asks you to see links like these.

Must-know for the HL extension:

A global political challenge crosses borders, affects many actors and causes political disagreement about who should act and who should pay. Analyse each case in five steps.

1. Define the challenge in one sentence.
2. Levels 层面: how it appears locally, nationally and globally, and how the levels affect each other.
3. Actors 行为体 and their interests 利益: states, IGOs, NGOs, companies, movements, and the people affected.
4. Governance 治理: which institutions and rules deal with it, and whether they can enforce decisions.
5. Evaluate the responses, using the key concepts: power, sovereignty, legitimacy and interdependence.

Environment: climate change

Climate change 气候变化 is a global problem, but emissions are controlled by sovereign states.

Paris has almost universal membership because no target is forced on anyone. The same design is its weakness: there is no punishment for missing a target, and the total of all NDCs is not enough to meet the goal. Each state has a reason to let others pay, a collective action problem 集体行动困境.

Health: COVID-19

The World Health Organization 世界卫生组织 (WHO) gives advice, sets standards and coordinates, but it cannot force states to act. In 2020 states closed borders and competed for medical supplies and vaccines. COVAX, a programme to share vaccines with poorer countries, delivered nearly 2 billion doses, but these arrived much later than doses in rich countries. The case shows the limits of sovereignty (a virus ignores borders) and of IGOs without enforcement power.

Borders: forced migration

The 1951 Refugee Convention 难民公约 defines a refugee 难民 as a person who has left their country because of a well-founded fear of persecution, and says they must not be sent back to danger. People leaving because of poverty or climate change are not covered by this definition. By 2024 the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, counted more than 120 million people forced from their homes worldwide. States control their borders (sovereignty), but refugees have rights under international law.

Technology: artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is developed mainly by a few large companies in a few countries, but it affects jobs, elections and security everywhere. The European Union's AI Act (2024) is the first broad law on AI; other states prefer voluntary rules or their own national laws. The case asks who has power over a technology that crosses borders instantly, and whether companies or states should set the rules.

Paper 3 often asks how challenges connect. Use a chain:

Worked plan. A sample question from the IB: "With reference to two of the cases you have researched, examine the links between multiple global political challenges."

1. Thesis: the challenges are linked mainly through poverty and equality, which make every other challenge hit the poorest hardest.
2. Case 1, the 2022 Pakistan floods: environment → health (disease after the floods) → poverty (crops and homes lost) → equality (a low-emitting country paying for others' emissions; this led to demands for a "loss and damage" fund, agreed at the COP27 climate conference in 2022).
3. Case 2, COVID-19: health → poverty (lost jobs and school time) → equality (late vaccines for poorer countries).
4. Counter-argument: some links reduce challenges: technology spread information and vaccines quickly; the pandemic increased cooperation in some areas.
5. Judgement: the links are strongest where governance is weakest; global institutions handle one challenge at a time, but the problems arrive together.

• The HL extension: Paper 3, 1 hour 30 minutes, stimulus-based, 30% of HL; cases you research yourself.
• The challenges: borders, environment, equality, health, identity, poverty, security, technology.
• The five steps: define, levels, actors and interests, governance, evaluate.
• Climate change: UNFCCC 1992, Kyoto 1997, Paris 2015 and NDCs; the collective action problem.
• COVID-19: the WHO's limits; COVAX.
• Forced migration: the 1951 Refugee Convention; sovereignty and rights.
• Artificial intelligence: the EU AI Act 2024; companies and states.
• Links between challenges, with the Pakistan floods and COVID-19.