IB Geography HL — Global trends in consumption

Key Idea: Topic 3.1 is about how the world's consumption of resources is growing and changing — and how we measure it. It pulls together three ideas: 3.1.1 — measuring consumption: the ecological footprint turns a person's resource use and waste into one land area, and embedded (virtual) water is the hidden water used to make goods. 3.1.2 — the new global middle class: rising incomes grow a huge middle class whose diets shift toward meat, dairy and processed food, sharply raising the resource footprint (especially water). 3.1.3 — energy & resource trends: total consumption is rising, but per-person use is falling in many rich countries while rising fast in middle-income ones. This is core content, examined on Paper 2 — data-response reads off graphs, maps and infographics, short structured Explain/Suggest questions, and a markband extended-response essay.

👣 3.1.1 — Footprints and the water you cannot see

Everything we consume uses up resources. Two measures turn that invisible demand into a number you can compare: the ecological footprint (a land area) and embedded water (hidden water in goods). The skills examiners test are defining these terms precisely, explaining how the footprint captures consumption, and reading bar-graph or map data — State a value, Estimate a range (highest minus lowest), Describe a spatial pattern.

Tip: The water locked into a country's goods rises or falls as diets, technology, trade and wealth shift — e.g. rising meat demand in China pushed it up. A cotton T-shirt carries roughly 2,700 litres; one beef burger about 2,400 litres.

🍖 3.1.2 — The new global middle class & changing diets

As emerging economies grow, hundreds of millions join the global middle class with enough disposable income to spend beyond survival. The clearest effect is diet: people eat more meat, dairy and processed food, which has a far bigger resource footprint — especially water.

As income rises, the share of income spent on food falls (a negative relationship — about 48% in low-income to 9% in high-income). Richer people spend more in total but a smaller fraction of income on food.

⚡ 3.1.3 — Trends in energy & resource consumption

Total world energy and resource use is rising, but the per-person picture splits by income group. Development raises both demand and the energy available (capital to build supply, money to import fuel and buy efficient technology), and reshapes the fuel mix (e.g. nuclear growing in some nations, declining in others).

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