This resource is for the 2018-24 specification. Please visit the 2025 section of the website for up-to-date materials.
If you are a student who finds yourself saying this, or a teacher who hears something like this from your students, take care! Trying to write an IR on “Climate Change” is like heading off for a two-week holiday to “see the world”. You’re likely to have a pretty random trip with a lot of frustration, and whatever you end up seeing, it isn’t going to be “the world”!
Climate change is a vast and complex set of interconnecting issues, and you absolutely need to narrow the focus, or you’ll end up making very general points which can’t go into enough detail.
Below are some more focused IR research questions for Climate Change, along with some links to a starter source to explain the issue.
Sustainable Living
- Is “direct carbon capture” a good option to address climate change?
- Is tree planting a good solution to global warming?
- How effective is individual action in reducing climate emissions?
- Is vegetarianism a good way to tackle climate change?
- Who has responsibility to solve the problems of climate change?
- Does anybody benefit from climate change, or from avoiding climate action?
Trade & aid
- Which places are likely to suffer the most from climate change?
- Are developed countries evading their responsibility by “outsourcing” their carbon emissions?
Biodiversity and ecosystem loss
- How will wildlife be protected from climate change? [You could focus further, e.g. on a particular species or habitat of global importance.]
- How important are the world’s great forests as carbon sinks?
- How can ecosystems be protected from forest fires?
- Is “bio-diesel” a good way for a country to reduce its carbon emissions?
- Is global warming going to worsen the problem of invasive species?
Humans and other species
- Can polar bears / coral / [other species of global importance] survive global warming?
- How does animal farming contribute to climate change?
Belief systems
- Do we need to do more to tackle “climate change denial”?
- Should religions do more to fight climate change?
Phrasing research questions
Here are some examples of well-focused research questions given in the summer 2021 examiner report:
- Should governments promote the use of electric cars?
- Is social media making people lonelier?
- Should Artificial Intelligence replace judges?
- Does free trade help the world’s poorer nations?
- Can trophy hunting be justified?
Notice that these are all phrased as yes/no questions. For essay writing in general, teachers often discourage yes/no questions like that, for fear that the student might give a simplistic yes/no answer without exploring the grey areas between yes and no. However, from the list we can see that for the Individual Report the examiners value focus above all. After all, students know that they need to explore different perspectives on an issue, which will inevitably lead into those grey areas. It isn’t essential, but the benefit of a punchy yes/no question is that it discourages just describing the situation and sitting on the fence – you know you have to answer it, and it gives your investigation a clear resolution when you arrive at your answer.
Our Out of the Box unit on climate change demonstrates many other required ingredients of the Individual Report as well as providing a framework for formulating strong research questions.