🎯 Context

Last lesson covered the environmental movement and three of the seven influences named in the statement: the media, an individual, and an author.

This lesson covers the other four: an environmental disaster, an international agreement, a technological development and a scientific discovery. By the end, every row of your record table should be filled.

There is an assessed piece at the end. It is worth ten marks and you will sit it under exam conditions.

Phase 1: An environmental disaster, Fukushima Daiichi

<aside> <img src="/icons/leaf_green.svg" alt="/icons/leaf_green.svg" width="40px" />

1.1.10 The development of the environmental movement has been influenced by individuals, literature, the media, major environmental disasters, international agreements, new technologies and scientific discoveries.

An environmental disaster—for example, Minamata disaster (1956), Chernobyl disaster (1986), Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (2011)

Examples may also be recent, from indigenous cultures or local/global events of student interest.

</aside>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUBxtTEOiPI&t=1s&ab_channel=BBCNews

Part A: the first 28 hours

Seven of the statements below are events, in the wrong order. Number them 1 to 7. The eighth is not an event.

Get this right and the rest of the case study follows. Get it wrong and you will spend the next two years telling examiners that an earthquake caused a nuclear accident, which is not what happened.

• A. A hydrogen explosion blows the roof and walls off the service floor of the Unit 1 reactor building, at 15:36 on 12 March.
• B. The Great East Japan Earthquake, magnitude 9.0, strikes at 14:46 on 11 March. It is the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan. The operating reactors, Units 1 to 3, shut down automatically as designed.
• C. The evacuation zone is extended to 10 km, at 05:44 on 12 March.
• D. At about 15:35, a tsunami with waves reaching 15 to 17 metres overwhelms the plant's sea defences, floods the site, and disables 12 of the 13 backup generators, which the plant needed to keep the reactors cool.
• E. The government orders evacuation out to 20 km, at 18:25 on 12 March.
• F. Water in the Unit 1 reactor falls to the bottom of the fuel, at about 19:30 on 11 March. A nuclear emergency has already been declared.
• G. Evacuation orders are issued in stages during the evening of 11 March: 2 km at 20:50, then 3 km at 21:23, with people between 3 and 10 km told to shelter indoors.
• H. The plant's sea wall was built to stop waves of up to 5.7 metres.

1. Write your order, 1 to 7.

2. How many minutes separate B and D? Explain why that gap is the single most important fact in this case study.

3. Identify the statement that is not an event, and explain why it is included.

Part B: the long view

The accident lasted days. Its influence on the environmental movement is still running. Opposition to nuclear power has been part of the environmental movement since the 1970s, so a nuclear accident can bring that side of the movement new support. Place each statement below in the correct row of the table.

• 1. Japan's Third Strategic Energy Plan set targets for nuclear to generate 30 to 50% of electricity by 2030. Germany amended its Nuclear Power Act to extend reactor operating lives by an average of 12 years.
• 2. The Japanese government, the energy companies and major media outlets worked together to build what critics call the safety myth: the idea that nuclear energy brought no harm, emphasising benefits and consciously downplaying risks.
• 3. Germany shut down eight older reactors immediately and accelerated its phase-out.
• 4. Italy abandoned plans to restart a nuclear programme after an overwhelming referendum defeat.
• 5. Switzerland cancelled plans to build new reactors and set out a phase-out.
• 6. Public distrust of nuclear power rose sharply. Information from the government and the press was unclear, which left space for speculation and worst-case assumptions.
• 7. Around 164,000 people were displaced at the peak. No fatalities have been attributed to radiation exposure, but 2,313 disaster-related deaths have been recorded among evacuees, about 90% of them people aged over 66.
• 8. Long-term displacement caused serious psychological and social harm. Many evacuees experienced mental health problems, family separation and sleeplessness. Some scientists judged that fear of radiation was doing more damage than the radiation itself.
• 9. Projections for nuclear development worldwide had fallen, though the changes were largely confined to Japan, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) and some Western European countries.
• 10. The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) published its 2020 report, confirming that no adverse health effects among Fukushima residents had been directly attributed to radiation exposure.
• 11. Japan began releasing treated water from the site into the Pacific Ocean, over the objections of neighbouring governments and local fishing communities.
• 12. The Swiss parliament voted to lift the ban on building new nuclear power plants that voters had approved in 2017. Opponents launched a referendum, so voters are expected to have the final word.

About 27,000 people were still displaced in November 2025, and decommissioning of the site is scheduled to run until 2051.

1. Complete the table.

2. Using Part A, describe what happened at Fukushima Daiichi, where, and when.

3. Explain what influence this disaster had on the development of the environmental movement. Refer to at least two countries.

4. Statements 5 and 12 describe the same country moving in opposite directions. Suggest what that tells you about how long a disaster's influence lasts.

Phase 2: An international agreement, COP 27

<aside> <img src="/icons/leaf_green.svg" alt="/icons/leaf_green.svg" width="40px" />

International agreements—for example, Rio Earth Summit (1992) and Rio+20 (2012); 2015 and 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conferences (COP 21, COP 27)

Examples may also be recent, from indigenous cultures or local/global events of student interest.

</aside>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVbvzO0QKgo&ab_channel=UNClimateChange

A COP is a Conference of the Parties: the annual meeting of the countries that signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. COP 27 met at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November 2022.

Its one substantial outcome was an agreement to set up a loss and damage fund, to help countries already suffering climate impacts they did not cause. Developing countries had been asking for this for roughly thirty years and had been refused every time. That is why it counts as an influence on the movement: it changed what could be argued for.

What COP 27 did not do is also part of the answer. It did not strengthen the emissions commitments made at COP 21 in Paris in 2015, and the fund was agreed in principle before anyone had agreed who would pay into it or who could draw from it.

A COP is an intergovernmental organisation at work: states negotiating with each other. Nobody can be forced to comply. That is the central weakness of every example in this category and it belongs in your answer.

1. State what a COP is and which countries attend.

2. Explain why agreeing a loss and damage fund counted as a breakthrough.

3. Suggest one reason why an agreement between governments can influence the environmental movement even when it changes no emissions.

Phase 3: Technology and discovery