Module description
This module introduces students to the social dimensions of climate and climate change. The module takes a critical analysis of the dominant international process to mitigate climate change emissions, comprising of the IPCC, UNFCCC process and the Paris Accord. We will explore the different ways in which climate knowledge is constructed and how climate is represented and articulated in society. Existing discourses of climate change are placed in an historical perspective, and alternative aims for climate change mitigation explored.
The module begins with a history of the discovery of climate change and an outline of the global governance regime for climate mitigation, as manifested through the Paris Agreement, UNFCCC process, and the IPCC reports. We will then critically analyse this process, by discussing the assumptions that underpin it, the unintended consequences of action to fight climate change, and alternative measures and outcomes that are not covered within the UNFCCC process.
Lectures will be as follows [note that these are subject to change]:
1. The historical geography of climate change
2. The UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement: Panacea or placebo?
3. Whose knowledge matters: The geographies of producing climate information
4. The right stuff? Decision-making and the use of climate information
5. Failure to launch: The story of UK climate adaptation
6. Look who’s talking: Climate change and the media
7. A case of environmental colonialism?
8. Climate litigation: Using courts to enforce climate targets
9. Climate change and human mobility: Migration, displacement, and planned relocation
10. One direction? The ethics of climate change
Assessment details
500-word (or equivalent) formative assessment (0%), 2,500-word (or equivalent) assessment (100%)
Learning outcomes
On completion of this module students should be able to:
- Critically understand the role of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).
- Understand the idea of climate from a variety of perspectives, including cultural/historical geography, vulnerability/resilience theory, science and technology studies
- Understand the processes involved in the creation of climate knowledge
- Appreciate climate change as a social discourse and place existing narratives regarding climate and climate change within an historical perspective
- Understand the role of different cultural and political beliefs within climatic discourse and how these are represented in the media
- Understand the challenges faced in adapting to climate change and outline case studies of adaptation to climate variability
- Critically assess the contribution of social science knowledge to contemporary climate debates.
Teaching pattern
10 hours lectures, 10 hours seminars