CORE 107 aims to understand the politics of climate change in the United States—and countries vital to any meaningful international climate agreement—by exploring the gap between scientific consensus and political mobilization. The course will begin by examining ethical questions about humans’ relationship with the environment, framing policy debates in philosophical terms to give students a fundamental understanding of climate issues across authoritarian and democratic nations around the world. The course will then dive into how public policy has both succeeded at and failed to address the challenges of climate change, considering political science theories of public opinion and interest group pluralism. Students will learn about the strategies and choices of specific nations, with special attention given to the evolution of climate policy in the United States from Obama’s to Trump’s Presidential terms. The final weeks of the course will be spent looking at “ways forward” from the perspective of nations, sectors, technologies, individuals, and the world as a whole. 

This course explores climate change through the lens of colonialism, concluding with a unit on climate justice. It foregrounds marginalized perspectives from people of color, Indigenous peoples, and Global South peoples and includes work from scholars, advocates, and activists. It considers colonialism's many legacies and aftermaths, including topics like climate coloniality, extractivism, settler colonialism, security, migration, and various ways climate change is narrativized. It also explores different frameworks for justice, e.g. reparations and land back.

 To understand what is climate change and to be aware of how transversal it is
 To have a critical and educated opinion on the news you receive about climate change
 To establish a thorough understanding of the current climate governance and its architecture
 To understand the various actors and their respective expectations
 To practice empathy and deepen perspectives by acting out in-class climate negotiations and role-plays
 To expand one’s ability to intervene adequately in multilateral fora
 To build on the diverse perspectives of the course participants
 To have fun while dealing with a very serious issue

In Part I, this course will offer you the means to answer this question, focusing on the 4 most emitting sectors of greenhouse gases to date: Energy, Buildings, Transportation, and Agro-industry -- also looking at industry overall as well as consumption behaviors. We will be studying together what the means to decarbonize such sectors in a given country are – using on actual data sets. You will be asked to work in small groups on a given country (including but not limited to some of the biggest GHG emitting countries: the USA, China, India, Germany and Brazil). By the end of mid-term, you will produce an “issue brief” proposal for economy-wide decarbonization in the country assigned to your group. Your work will be supported by En-ROADS, an interactive modeling tool integrating systems dynamics by Climate Interactive.

In Part II of the course, while practicing your skills in op-ed writing to promote your policy proposal(s), you will delve into the hurdles of implementation, looking at the (extremely low) rates of compliance of environmental policies, at the issue of social justice and fair transition, and eventually touching upon our very own (individual as well as collective) immunity to change.

Over the course of the semester, we will identify the power dynamics of the various stakeholders of climate (and economic) policy and empower you to actively address them with adequate proposals.

This course explores the basic tenets of climate change science as a foundation for further studies in sustainability, mitigation, resilience, and adaptation in the built environment. As such, this course examines both decarbonization and responses to and preparations for climate impacts. The practice component of this course focuses on sustainability in building and site design; community resilience in urban planning; engineering resilience in buildings and infrastructure; ecological resilience in environmental management; multi-hazard risk assessment in disaster risk management; and adaptation processes in the public and private sectors that drive the construction, financing, and management of the built environment. Concepts and methods are explored through a variety of interdisciplinary practices ranging from coastal planning to asset management. Students will develop a critical understanding of relevant public policies and institutions, design and engineering techniques, economic strategies, and planning models. While there are no prerequisites for this course, some interest and general familiarity with environmental studies is useful. This course is intended to serve as an advanced elective for undergraduates and an introductory elective for graduate students in real estate, architecture, design, historic preservation, public policy, environmental studies, urban studies and liberal arts.

This course examines climate change policy, planning, and action through the lens of systemic change and shifting power. The course roughly breaks down into three parts: 1) What are current conditions and how did we get here? 2) Where and how do systems changes occur and by whom? What are our forums for action? 3) What systems are ripe for change? How can change-making address the climate crisis shift power and how decisions are made? Who has the power to make change and at what scale? What is needed to imagine another world being possible and make that world reality?

In looking for answers to these questions, we explore scientific evidence, ethics, impacts, law and policy responses, movement building, and actions planned and taken. We look at sources of greenhouse gas emissions and their impacts on health, justice, and the economy. We look at proposed solutions—some rejected, some adopted, and many still in play—by governments, communities, and institutions (both for-profit and non-profit) and for major systems, e.g. energy, transportation, food and agriculture, buildings, and waste.

Anthropogenic climate change is now recognised as “the” central societal problem of the 21st century. This unit aims to engage with a range of social scientific analysis of the gap between the consensual scientific understanding of the problem and the mobilisation of policy and behaviour change to address it. This involves a diverse range of perspectives drawing on politics, political economy, economics and policy analysis to sociology, management, anthropology and psychology. With this multi-disciplinary approach, the unit intends to equip participants with analytical approaches which enable them to make sense of the core debates and discourses on climate change.


Aims:
- To examine the concept of anthropogenic climate change and the reasons for action and inaction in response to scientific knowledge about its social and environmental implications.
- To equip students with a range of social scientific theoretical perspectives on the relationship between scientific knowledge about climate change implications and public responses. This includes an ability to analyse interests that perpetuates inaction, and the social dynamics that make change difficult.
- To analyse the distributional consequences of failure to take action and examine new concepts such as climate justice being developed to address this.
- To examine social, economic and political responses to the problem such as solidarities and movements, and the alternative visions and approaches to societal development.

Climate change is the largest environmental threat facing humans and other species that inhabit planet Earth. We are increasingly aware of the causes, impacts, and likelihood of climate change. Yet, recent international meetings on climate change suggest that the nations (and people) of the world are unwilling to take actions on the scale and timeline that most scientists say is needed to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change. In short, the demand for climate action implied by most scientific evidence has not yet been matched by the supply of action from political leaders, policy-makers, and the public.

The first United Nations conference on environmental themes occurred in Stockholm in June 1972. The unofficial report to the Stockholm conference specified matters in terms of “Only One Earth” suggesting that maintaining it in habitable condition was a primary concern of global governance. The contradictions between growth and environment were palpable in this discussion, and have shaped global environmental thinking ever since. What is often forgotten in this discussion is that nuclear war was also a major concern in the conference declaration.

Sufficient and equitable policies addressing the crisis of climate change have been elusive, and United States’ leadership is crucial for an adequate global response. After several weeks of readings and lectures on climate policy, the course shifts to team-based research to produce strategic, policy-relevant briefings and scholarly outputs with partner organizations in Rhode Island, Washington, and internationally. Students will travel to D.C. for five days in October to attend meetings with experts and staff from government agencies, industry organizations, think tanks, and environmental NGOs, and to hold a briefing on our joint research.

Though we tend to treat it as a technological or economic issue, climate change is fundamentally a political problem. This course provides much needed political science theory for understanding why we must consider the politics of climate change if we are to make progress on decarbonization.

This graduate course explores social science theories and debates surrounding climate change and related environmental issues such as the transition to renewable energy sources and the implications of increasing strains on natural resources such as water. Parting from social science frames for environmental problems, such as the tragedy of the commons within scholarly literature on “the collective action problem,” the course looks concretely at the explanatory strengths and limitations of the social sciences in explaining climate change and related environmental problems. The course looks at international, national, and subnational interest groups and actors across a range of cases around the world and also considers the role of individual behavior. Open to MA and PhD students, enrollment is limited to 20 students as the course will be based heavily on discussion and written assignments.

This graduate seminar is designed for rigorous study of cutting-edge political science research on the global climate crisis. It aims to use the tools of political science to contribute to climate solutions. Each class session, students will read articles and books written by the world’s leading experts on the politics of climate change, identify the main contributions, and most importantly, discuss the remaining gaps in knowledge. The course will focus on determining which knowledge gaps represent the most urgent obstacles for addressing the climate crisis and how to fill those gaps through original research. Graduate students and advanced undergraduates will be expected to produce a draft of a publishable research paper that begins to fill a specific knowledge gap, either solo-authored or co-authored. Undergraduates will also have the option to submit as their main course paper a literature review that draws attention to a specific knowledge gap and explains its urgency. Undergraduates seeking to enroll require permission of the instructor and will be expected to have completed prior coursework or equivalent practical work related to climate change or other environmental issues.

This course focuses on the interplay between science, technology and policy-making from the perspective of science and technology studies (STS), which is an interdisciplinary field that examines the societal context in which science is conducted and the interplay between science and politics in identifying and addressing policy issues. Specifically, the course applies a STS perspective to climate change science and policy. It introduces students to STS and to central scientific and political debates that shape climate change policy. The goal is to understand the larger picture of intertwining relationships between scientific, technical and political systems that shape policy with a focus on climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing the world in the 21st century. There is a consensus among scientists about the causes of this phenomenon: the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas from electricity generation, transportation, industry, and agriculture. Yet, these are the same drivers of economic growth and, therefore, poverty alleviation globally. For many years the cornerstone of climate policy was striking a balance between economic development and the protection of the planet. However, nowadays it is much clearer that the world's future welfare depends heavily on the extent to which we address climate change: instead of being a limit to future development, the mitigation of climate change is a necessary condition for it.

This course will help explain how governments at the international, national, and regional levels are addressing – or not addressing – the extraordinary challenge of climate change.

Development of environmental policies and institutions and their effects on the motivations and the actions of individuals and groups with implications for questions of equity, justice, and sustainability. Draws on approaches from comparative politics, public policy, and international relations.

Climate change and the environment are becoming central topics for politics and societies in many countries. This course introduces students to the politics surrounding the environment, with a focus on political behavior, party politics and policy-making. It will provide an overview of the main debates on the environment within political science, also integrating research from economics. The focus will be - but is not limited to – established democracies in the Global North and quantitative empirical research.

This module explores the politics of global anthropogenic climate change, one of the central challenges – perhaps the single greatest challenge – of our age. Combining theoretical, case study and normative analysis, the module considers the nature and causes of climate change; global, national and local attempts to limit and mitigate it; its current and projected future impacts; and the possibilities of climate change adaptation. Topics discussed will range from the UN climate regime to Extinction Rebellion, from the origins of our global fossil fuel economy to the politics of renewables, and from ‘climate refugees’ to the political economy of carbon offsetting.

The goal for this class is for students to learn to think like environmental policy analysts in a rapidly changing world. Environmental policy is a fundamentally interdisciplinary field, requiring the synthesis of many disciplinary tools and areas of knowledge to understand problems, propose solutions, and evaluate their effectiveness and equity. Analytical approaches to be discussed and applied include political ecology, environmental justice, environmental impact assessment, and sustainable development. We will be challenged to examine environmental problems many points of view that inform current policy debates. These perspectives should provoke and enrich our discussions and our analyses, over the course of this semester and out into the world as analysts, advocates, and engaged members of society.

This module explores the place of water, climate and energy in global politics. Human-induced global climate change is one of the central challenges – perhaps the single greatest challenge – of our age. It is a consequence, above all, of our insatiable appetite for fossil fuel energy resources. And many of its most serious consequences are projected to relate to water, from increased floods and droughts to rising seas. Moreover, water, climate and energy issues are deeply political, in both their causes, and their current and anticipated future consequences. Adopting a political ecology approach, this module introduces and investigates this politics.

All policy is climate change policy. The challenges and solutions for climate change span across society and the economy, which means that addressing the climate crisis requires transformative change to both eliminate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. Global greenhouse gas emissions need to reduce rapidly in the next ten years and reach net zero around mid-century in order to have a chance of avoiding dangerous climate change. At the same time, climate change is exacerbating existing societal vulnerabilities and is having deep impacts across natural and social systems. This course focuses on the governance of the transformation necessary to address this crisis and covers theories behind and practical approaches to the multilevel governance of climate change. The course covers a range of public policy areas related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, including energy supply, energy use and demand, carbon markets and economic tools, food and agriculture, and transportation. In this course, students will learn about dealing with complexity in climate policy-making and the range of actors involved in climate change policy spanning multiple levels of government as well as non-state actors. The primary focus is on policy-making in Canada, but the course also incorporates international policy and global North case studies.

This course examines the environmental justice movement and its connection to climate change. It scrutinizes larger systems of power and privilege that produce unjust environmental and climate conditions putting communities of color, immigrants, indigenous, and low-income earners at greater risk. This course will use transnational case studies from Chicago’s Latinx community, Puerto Rico, the U.S./Mexico border and other localities to examine the intersection of environmental hazards and climate change with migration, displacement, surveillance, identity, and COVID-19. This is a highly collaborative course that requires full participation in the reading discussions so that students in working groups can draw upon learned frameworks to complete a public memory project developed in collaboration with partner organizations Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) and Alianza Americas.

The atmosphere is a local, regional, and global commons. Many scientists have described the atmosphere as suffering from a “tragedy of the commons,” and environmentalists widely claim that the tragedy has become more of a horror film due to the threats of (1) transboundary air pollution, (2) stratospheric ozone depletion, and (3) climate change. While this course examines these three threats from a wide range of perspectives, it mostly takes a combined historical and policy approach to understanding international conflict and cooperation over the atmosphere. The course primarily aims to answer two overarching questions: First, what has the international community done in order to protect the atmosphere, and what should it be doing now? An important part of answering this question is to discern what we mean by “international community,” and to emphasize that it does not only refer to countries and international organizations. Second, and very importantly, what does “protecting the atmosphere” actually mean from the perspective of international environmental policy? One response to the latter question will constitute a key theme of the course—viz., that there are inextricable ties between "atmospheric health" and other environmental media (viz., land, water, and the biosphere—not to mention human health).

Climate change has historically been considered a global environmental problem, requiring effective global cooperative action. However, an emergent complementary perspective frames solutions to climate change as the result of myriad national and local decisions, such as around investment, consumption, and livelihoods. From this perspective, the central challenge is less building global cooperation and more enabling national and local systems to develop an integrated response to climate change and development.

This seminar provides an overview of global climate governance, incl. overarching conceptual frameworks, a variety of empirical subdomains, and central challenges encountered in global climate governance. Using a portfolio approach to examinations, students will prepare a range of individual and group assignments throughout the semester.

Climate change is the keystone environmental issue of this generation, and most likely for many generations to come. While the world community and individual countries have formulated policies to address climate change, these policies are almost universally recognized as being wholly inadequate to effectuate the objective of the Paris Agreement to hold global temperatures to well below 2ºC above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit increases to 1.5ºC. Indeed, it has become increasingly obvious that achievement of Paris temperature objectives will require both aggressive emission reductions initiatives and large-scale deployment of carbon dioxide removal/negative emissions technologies and processes (CDR), sometimes also referred to as a major sub-category of climate geoengineering, and carbon capture and sequestration with storage (CCS), technologies that capture carbon dioxide remissions at the flue stack.

This course will discuss the exigency of deploying CCS and CDR approaches at scale, including potential benefits and risks of these options. It also will discuss regulatory and governance considerations at both the national and international level, as well as strategies to incentivize large-scale adoption of these approaches.

Students in the Krogh seminar examine a major issue in international affairs and work on an independent research project related to that issue. This year’s theme centers on the politics, law, and economics of climate change. We will collectively study how climate change intersects with many of the other issues we study in SFS such as trade, capitalism, democracy, human rights, conflict and migration. Students will then individually or in small groups produce research that focuses on a specific aspect of this broader theme or a specific country. No prior in-depth knowledge of climate change issues is required.

Environmental issues are a “perfect storm” of challenges for governance: they involve market failures; require coordinated action on all scales; involve complex scientific, economic, and social issues and uncertainties; engage core economic interests of self-interested groups; emerge on time scales in which near-term actions can have long-term consequences; evoke competing ethical or moral claims; and involve personal choices by and affect the livelihoods of everyone on Earth. Climate change has garnered most of the attention, but other problems include air pollution, water pollution and shortages, ozone depletion, overfishing, deforestation, biodiversity loss, habitat loss, and plastics and other wastes and toxins.

Negotiations have had some successes in addressing these problems, but have not yet resulted in policy changes sufficient to prevent major damage. At the same time, improvements in science, technology, and economics are creating opportunities to markedly reduce future damage done by greenhouse gases and other pollutants at modest economic costs.

While this is not a course in climate science or environmental economics, we begin with a brief discussion of these topics for context. We will then explore the role of path-dependent politics on energy transitions, environmental and energy politics in and outside the US, international environmental negotiations and institutions, the politics of other environmental problems, the resource curse, and related conflict.

This subject is an introduction to the major topics in climate change, including the scientific basis of the greenhouse effect, the history of Earth’s climate, energy options, economics and public policy, the effect of climate change on food, water and health, and the national and international legal frameworks for the management of climate change.

Carbon dioxide is the mother of all externalities -- global, ubiquitous, long-term, uncertain, inequitable. This module uses the tools of economic analysis to study the problem of climate change and its solutions. We build up to a cost-benefit analysis, first discussing the costs and means of greenhouse gas emission reduction, before estimating the value of avoided climate change. The cost-benefit analysis is done from the perspectives of both a global social planner and national social planner.

Outline

1. The science of climate change

2. Emission scenarios and options for greenhouse gas emission reduction

3. Costs of greenhouse gas emission reduction

4. Policy instruments for greenhouse gas emission reduction

5. Impacts of and adaptation to climate change

6. Economic impacts of climate and the social cost of carbon

7. Climate and development

8. Optimal climate policy and the social discount rate

9. Uncertainty and equity

10. International climate policy and the provision of global public goods

11. The ozone hole and acid rains as models for international climate policy

In the seminars, we build an integrated assessment model that illustrates key elements of lectures 1-10.

This subject focuses on climate change adaptation, and in particular its environmental, political, social and policy dimensions. It explores the ways which climate change poses risks to human wellbeing, and the ways these risks can be managed. It draws on examples from Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, and in particular from the teaching staff’s concurrent research on climate change adaptation in small islands. The subject explains that adaptation and its success can be thought of and approached in multiple ways, shaped in part by existing interests and the varied and dynamic places in which adaptation is being consciously or unconsciously implemented. The subject also highlights that adaptation poses as well as addresses risks, and that decisions about adaptation need to be considered critically and iteratively. The subject is taught in an intensive mode.

The main objective of this course is to understand the role fossil fuels play in mediating the metabolic relationship between human society and the other elements of the biosphere. Since the late 18 th century, a new way of producing commodities has emerged at the heart of the British Empire, mediated by the energy embodied in fossilized plants, and with it a new mode of relating to the biosphere. After providing some basic concepts to discuss how human groups relate to the biosphere, the course will trace back the origins of the use of fossil fuel energy in industrial production, and assess the key role this form of energy has played in the development of the capitalist economy. We will discuss in-depth how fossil fuel extraction and consumption have since then organized capitalist society in all its aspects, with special emphasis on the multiple ways individual and corporate agency inserts itself within broad scale economic, political and ecological structural processes. The second half of the course will address current issues of fossil fuel expansion, and the political and cultural influence of the sector in Canada and elsewhere. In counterpoint to corporate agency, we will also examine the growing movements of resistance and opposition to fossil fuel expansion, as well as the varied and contending proposals for a transition away from fossil fuels and toward an economy based on renewable energy.

The problem of global warming can be described with by a simple economic model. We face a trade-off between current consumption, future consumption, and future climate. We have preferences over consumption and climate and would like to choose our optimal climate/consumption bundle. This course is organized around filling in the details required to make this model useful, characterizing the optimal climate/consumption path suggested by the model, and finally, investigating policies to move us towards the optimal path.

The first part of the course will be devoted to developing an understanding of the facts that confront us. The second part of the course will be devoted to solving for the optimal climate and consumption path. The third part of the course will investigate carbon mitigation policies. The course will require familiarity with microeconomics and basic calculus. In particular, I will assume you are familiar with the material from intermediate microeconomics and that you can solve univariate optimization problems. I will cover solution methods for more difficult problems in class.

This elective will shed light on the reality and plausibility of putting the financial sector at the service of society. Finance is arguably one of the most important sectors today. It is an industry which, not only due to its complexity but also due to its damaged reputation in the recent crisis can potentially provide real solutions to pressing social concerns despite its seeming to be a most unlikely candidate.

The course is designed so as to follow the money through the investment chain. We will explore how the flow of capital travels from the savers to the corporations in which the money is ultimately invested. Throughout, we will reflect on the potential flaws in the system and how to address them.

This course introduces students to the idea of connections and feedbacks between different aspects of the earth's surface environment on multiple timescales. It emphasizes the connections between the biosphere and physical and chemical influences that shape the climate of the Earth. Earth's evolution can be framed as the evolution of coupled systems, interrupted by "tipping-point" intervals of profound change- one of which is happening now with human alteration.

Environmental problems like climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and oceanic pollution transcend national borders. Solving these problems will require global cooperation on an unprecedented level. In this course, we will explore the challenges of contemporary global environmental governance and innovative solutions being advanced at the community, municipal, provincial, national, and international levels. Theories of international relations will form the lenses through which we assess the causes of, and solutions to, contemporary environmental challenges.

“Slow-moving policy crises” like climate change, population growth/change, water availability involve policy areas with a seemingly high probability of negative consequences, where the need for policy coordination seems clear but the pressures for coordination are somewhat removed, since the consequences of policy action or inaction may be felt only years down the road.

The questions underlying these cases are: how does a democratic political system, which operates on the short time horizon of elections, complicate policy decisions regarding social and natural processes with long time horizons for which the policy consequences are far removed from the political timeframe? How do politicians and policy makers evaluate the appropriate response to the problems posed by these processes? How can the institutions and processes of policy-making be amended to allow for improvement? What lessons can be drawn from other fields and decision-making arenas?

On one level the goal of this course is to introduce students to key concepts of rational choice, externalities, risk assessment, time horizons, event probabilities, path dependency and unintended consequences through readings in political science, economics and sociology; and on another level to give students the tools to evaluate policy responses in areas in which policy consequences are far removed from decision-makers.

A preeminent issue of our time is the impact of fossil fuel related emissions on human economic activity and wellbeing. Greenhouse gases lead to global warming and associate collateral damage. The problem is attempting to estimate the costs of emissions as a function of the scale of emissions, complicated by a host of potential feedback effects and by the need to assess how the economy might adapt. Although a transformation to renewables is inevitable in the not-too-distant future (when fossil fuels become sufficiently scarce), the critical question is by how much should the transformation to renewables be accelerated in light of the external costs of fossil fuel usage.

Getting off fossil fuels will not be easy. In 2018, fossil fuels accounted for 83% of primary energy in the United States and 84% percent world-wide. Fossil fuels offer great benefits, such as high energy concentration, ease of transport, relatively low-cost access, along with an already established massive infrastructure. Transitioning to renewable sources will be a long, complex, and expensive undertaking requiring financial and technological innovation.

This half-course has three objectives. First, to introduce students to data on energy usage and its impact. Second, to examine the tradeoffs associated with continued use of fossil fuels. Third, to assess the costs and benefits of a transition to renewable energy. This includes exploring options for financing what can be called the great transformation.

This course is designed to introduce you to the sub-discipline of environmental sociology. Throughout the semester we will explore the interactions between the natural and the human-built environment. We will discuss factors of human society that have caused degradation of ecological systems. In order to understand contemporary environmental problems, we must critically look at the values and priorities of society that drive human actions. We will end on a high note by exploring how social movements have emerged in response to environmental degradation. We will specifically focus on the motivations and measures individuals, groups, and nations take to curb and/or prevent further environmental degradation.

The course aims to provide a basic understanding of the climate change challenge and key legal mechanisms and policies related to climate change mitigation and adaptation. It focuses on international and EU law, while also considering examples from national jurisdictions.

Since the dawn of agriculture (~7000 BCE), but rapidly accelerating in the industrial age (1750 CE to the present), humanity has conducted an uncontrolled experiment in bending the natural environment to fit human needs and desires. Despite the perceived distance that technology has placed between our physical environments and our daily lives, human interactions with our natural environment are still fundamental – and set to be disrupted by climate change, one of the most vexing issues of our time. It poses a wicked problem: a socio/cultural problem that is seemingly impossible to solve due to incomplete knowledge, the number of people and opinions involved, the large changes required, and the linked nature of the problem with other major social issues and problems.

Since the end of the Cold War, much attention has been paid to the role of natural resources and environmental scarcity as a potential source of conflict, ranging from “water wars” between states sharing a common river basin to communal conflict between pastoralists and farmers in the Sahel and even the Syrian Civil War. This course will survey the impacts of climate change on livelihoods and human security, evaluate the expanding literature on environmental impacts on conflict, and address the emerging role of environmental stressors and climate change as US national security issues.

This course will discuss the dynamics of climate change politics. Climate change is both one of the most significant consequences of and challenges for contemporary politics. We explore climate politics primarily through a political economy lens, focused on the dynamics of capitalism, but explore the limits of this lens in particular in relation to questions of culture and everyday life, the role of the state, and international cooperation. The course is organised sequentially to get you to think about three distinct questions about climate change politics: the political-economic origins of climate change; the political economy of responses to climate change; and the sort of transformational politics that thinking about the future in a climate-changed world entails.

Wilfrid Laurier University

Political Science

Winter 2021

Prof. Simon Dalby

Doctorate

This course seeks to build a reconstructive environmental sociology of the sustainable transition, incorporating debates from political ecology, critical design studies and energy/technology studies. It will debate the merits of green capitalist and post-capitalist, socio-centric and technocentric visions of the transition away from fossil fuels. We will use current discussions of the Green New Deal as a test case for thinking about how the promise and the pitfalls that pervade a post-carbon politics in the United States. Class will meet on the RISD campus. This seminar will allow for 20 Brown students to register through Brown, and 15 RISD students to register through RISD.

Sufficient and equitable policies addressing the crisis of climate change have been elusive, and United States leadership is crucial for an adequate global response. After several weeks of readings and lectures on climate policy, the course shifts to team-based research to produce strategic, policy-relevant briefings and scholarly outputs with partner organizations in Rhode Island, Washington, and internationally. Students will travel to D.C. for five days in November to conduct interviews and attend meetings and a mini-conference with experts and staff from government agencies, industry organizations, think tanks, and environmental NGOs, and to hold a briefing on our joint research.

Climate change creates injustices in who caused the problem, who is suffering worst and first, and who is taking action. Power between nations and social groups drives unequal disaster risks and the “compounded vulnerabilities” of poor peoples and nations, and has led to gridlock in United Nations negotiations. The course reviews social and political dimensions of local and national adaptation efforts, media dynamics, collective and individual denial, and the rise of climate social movements.

The human emissions of billions of tons of gases known to trap heat in the atmosphere is a massive experiment on the systems that support our species. Human civilization has developed in a remarkably stable period of global temperature and precipitation, but the climate impacts are rising and projected to get much worse in the decades ahead. Are we helpless? Who is suffering first and worst from climate change?

Students will develop a thorough understanding of the major political issues related to this
enormous problem. Many important questions are explored:

What does the best scientific evidence suggest about climate change and how is that
evidence employed in public debate?

How can ordinary people come to understand and evaluate the scientific evidence?

Can the international community act to prevent, mitigate or adapt to ongoing climate
change in a timely fashion?

What dilemmas do countries like the U.S., China, and Germany face when deciding
whether to act to prevent, mitigate, or adapt to climate change in a timely fashion?

Will resource scarcities associated with climate change, including likely food and water
shortages, significantly increase the risks of famine, state failure, and/or war?

What political, economic, and social obstacles stand in the way of meaningful action to
address climate change?

What political, economic, and social factors might promote meaningful action?

Vulnerable, at risk, prone, fragile, precarious – coping, secure, adapted, resilient. What do these terms mean? How do they and the concepts behind them inform our approach to reducing the likelihood of damage in the face of climate stress? Climate extremes and climate change call for and justify policies to protect exposed and sensitive individuals and groups. Why, however, are these people vulnerable in the first place? How does gender, ethnicity, race, caste, class, religion, place of origin, age, profession, education shape people’s risk? Who is vulnerable and how did they come to be exposed and sensitive? We live in a world of haves and have nots, of the secure and insecure, the included and excluded. What processes generate extreme precarity for some? People need protection from storms and droughts. But to protect them we need to understand why they are vulnerable so we can treat the social and political-economic causes behind their vulnerability – the forces within society that expose them and push them to the edge. Without vulnerability, natural events are manageable. With vulnerability, these events become ‘hazards’ that can push people over that edge – off the cliff of precarity. This course focuses on the social roots and the reduction of vulnerability. We will explore: 1) causes of climate-related vulnerability; and 2) practices and policies designed to reduce economic loss, hunger, famine and dislocation in the face of climate trends and events.

This course consists of two interdependent parts. The first part covers key concepts of the policy process and different theoretical approaches relating to the analysis of (multi-level) governance arrangements. In the second part, we will apply these concepts and theoretical approaches to the analysis of responses to the climate crisis at different levels of government. During the course, we will review experiences and lessons learnt from OECD and non-OECD countries and address the following key questions in particular: How has agenda-setting taken place at the global level and in selected national administrations? Who have been the relevant state and non-state actors in this process? How have different national governments reacted and what kinds of instruments for mitigation and adaptation have they applied? Are there tensions emerging between the mitigation commitments of OECD and non-OECD governments? How can we understand policy change and resistance to change, and what have been typical societal conflicts and power struggles unfolding at different levels of government? What has been the role of subnational actors and city networks for addressing climate policies? To what extent have governments considered green growth and low-carbon strategies as possible solutions to tackle the climate crisis?

This course is an advanced seminar that examines topics in social, cultural and political aspects of climate change policy. We will look at the science of climate change and why it has been so contested in some quarters; the existing and predicted physical, cultural and societal impacts of climate change and how policies are developed to avoid or adapt to these; how vulnerability to climate change is measured and whether societies will be able to adapt to forecasted changes; multiscale policies from local levels to international levels to mitigate or adapt to climate impacts; and the ethical and social justice dimensions of policies for climate change.

Climate change is the most profound challenge facing humanity. Tackling climate change will test the limits of our collective ingenuity and grit. This course uses insights from environmental studies, international development, and the study and practice of global governance to determine avenues for response. The class works together across fields and disciplines to comprehend the nature of climate change and uncover effective entry-points for action. This is a capstone course for students in the School of International Service at American University. Our work together will range through foundational literatures and contemporary debates, and through our conversations we will take on a set of urgent and pressing questions: What is the nature of climate change? Along what paths lie the most effective responses to the world’s environmental dilemmas?

Climate change is the largest environmental threat facing planet Earth. We are aware of climate change’s causes, impacts, and likelihood. Yet, recent international meetings suggest that the nations (and people) of the world are unwilling to take the actions needed to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change. This course will help you understand both the science of climate change, the factors that influence whether we make progress on this global crisis, and the international, national, and local policies that can help. We will look at:

Understanding the science: What do we know and what don’t we know about climate change? To what extent is it human-caused and how do we know? How does one assess the arguments of those who contend that human-caused climate change is occurring compared to those who contend the opposite?

Setting the agenda: What has gotten climate change on or kept it off the international policy agenda? What role has scientific evidence played? What role have NGOs and activists played? What role have celebrities like Al Gore played? 

International responses to climate change -- negotiating an agreement: Why are some states “leaders” on climate change and others “laggards”? What “factors and actors” help negotiations succeed or fail?

Non-international responses to climate change: What actions are countries taking without international cooperation? What are corporations, communities, and individuals doing?

We will analyze the political dynamics of climate change by focusing on the problem, the politics, and the policies at a domestic and an international level. In the first unit, we will focus on the problem of climate change. We will evaluate the scientific consensus established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the dynamics between science and society as studied in the political science literature. We will also look at the issue of climate change from an economic lens: why are global emissions a problem, and what does the economics literature tell us about how to solve it?

This course introduces participants to the political dynamics of environmental affairs, examined in a global perspective. Whether confronting climate change, pollutants in land, air and water, land degradation, food insecurity, or the extinction of different species, environmental problems involve traversing boundaries of states and property. Inter-dependent systems have uneven, and often disparate impacts on people depending on their location, economic status, and citizenship, among other factors. How should society respond to those challenges? What is the role for governments, international organizations, market-based forces, and individuals in spurring meaningful change? The course’s central aim is to familiarize students with the role power plays in the emergence of environmental problems and how power in turn can be wielded in the service of human and ecological well-being.

Our class will begin with the nature and sources of international environmental politics, and an introduction to the key actors and agencies involved in global environmental governance. Focusing on the development of regimes addressing a range of environmental issues, the course addresses implementation and state responsibility for environmental harm and dispute resolution. Principles and objectives underpinning global environmental politics (GEP) include sustainable development, the precautionary principle, the polluter pays principle, and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.

Climate change is one of the most challenging problems facing humankind. This semester, we will confront this problem head-on from a legal and policy perspective. Smart, solution-oriented lawyers will play a critical role in addressing the myriad problems caused by climate change. The learning objectives for the course include: 1) Explain the basic causes of climate change and how it impacts the U.S. and global communities. 2) Understand core climate change terms such as “climate adaptation” and “mitigation.” 3) Understand the state of climate change litigation and the governing domestic legal framework to address climate change. 4) Understand the main legal components of the formal international law frameworks (i.e. UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement). 5) Explain the role of climate innovation and business in broader climate change laws and policies. 6) Understand “climate change federalism” and the role of sustainability initiatives already underway at the state and local level.

In this course, you will think out of the usual legal boxes, as lawyers and future lawyers have a great opportunity to create new caselaw and remedies for one of the major issues facing the world. Our modern civilization increasingly is dependent upon energy, yet over 80% of the energy consumed in the U.S. and world is from fossil fuels—which account for the lion’s share of greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. Climate change has become the subject of major concern and debate, with direct impact upon energy law and policy—as well as growing economic, health and social impacts, which is creating growing opportunities for work for attorneys and those trained in the law and litigation. This course will provide students with a practical understanding of issues that will fundamentally shape their personal and professional futures regardless of their ultimate fields of pursuit.

In this short course, you will be introduced to what other countries—especially major players like China and Russia-- are doing with respect to climate and energy, in comparison with our own. The materials and issues are very current. Additionally, you will have two special opportunities: a) in one class, we will do a video call with a Shanghai environmental attorney who has also studied at Vermont Law School; and b) students may be able to connect via email with some of Prof. Thaler’s Fall 2019 students at Duke Kunshan University in China, to ask questions about policies or other topics there.

This module offers a comprehensive introduction to the understanding of the domestic politics of environmental problems in a comparative (cross-national as well
as sub-national) perspective. The module begins by examining domestic views on the state of the environment and possible paths along which these views might change. We then move on to consider environmental politics at various different levels of political behaviour and organisation, starting with individual-level values, before moving up the organized politics of the environmental movement, interest groups, political parties, governmental institutions and courts. At each level we consider what drives approaches to the environment and what the consequences of those approaches are for political organisation and action.

The major task before delegates is the question of “ambition.” Will countries raise their “nationally determined contributions”(NDCs) above what they offered in Paris? The deadline for doing so is next year (2020), but ambitious countries have already been committing to raise their targets or even put forward new ones, and many will seek to use COP25 (and another UN summit in September) to press all countries to step up their efforts. In addition to NDCs, countries are also invited to present Long-term Strategies (LTSs) which are indicative pathways for emission reductions through 2050. Will these new commitments be enough to put the world on an emissions pathway compatible with 2C or 1.5C?

What We Will Study: Global problems like climate change, the mass extinction of species, ozone depletion, etc. cry out for unprecedented levels of international innovation and cooperation yet traditional political institutions seem inadequate to the task at hand. In this course, we will study a range of intergovernmental, nongovernmental and business responses to the challenges posed by global ecological interdependence, with a strong emphasis on North/South relations. We will also "bring the material home" by exploring how these global problems challenge our sense of human identity, ethical responsibility, and personal efficacy. The dawning of the Anthropocene, the new geological era in which humanity is operating as a planetary force, compels us to ask not only, "What on Earth are we doing?" but even more fundamentally, "What on Earth are we?" The course integrates objective learning, subjective experience and a group action project.

Pollutants no longer respect national boundaries. Environmental problems are thus becoming international and even global in scope. Yet they continue to be addressed by national governments. As a class we will explore the management, or governance, of transboundary and global environmental threat. Why do these problems exist and persist, what can the international community do to address them, and how well such efforts are faring at improving international environmental quality? We will focus on the social, political and economic factors influencing their causes and potential for management, and analyze and evaluate different patterns of international response to transboundary pollution and threats to the quality of international commons.

Examination of the scientific, social, economic and political aspects of energy generation, energy consumption, climate change, and sustainability. The course explores approaches towards sustainable transformations in energy generation to address the climate crisis.

In this seminar, we will explore the global and comparative political economy of the environment. We will review an established literature on the environment in IR, and an emerging literature on the environment in comparative politics. Throughout, the seminar will emphasize critical re ection on the methods used by political science to study the environment. We will contrast existing theoretical approaches to the study of the environment with traditional IR and CP perspectives. Topics will include: public goods theory, collective action theory, international environmental negotiations, environmental scarcity and con ict, the role of international and domestic institutions in environmental policymaking, environmental interest groups, environmental policymaking in non-democracies, and comparative environmental behavior. Special attention will be paid to the political economy of climate change. Students who are not specializing in environmental politics will still nd the seminar an opportunity for focused study of the interplay between domestic and international politics in a single issue domain.

As a graduate seminar, this course will also focus on research design, critically examining the standards of inference that have been used in environmental politics research. In both class discussion and written assignment, students will be expected to think critically about the ways in which environmental politics scholarship contributes to and engages core disciplinary debates.