Admission requirements
Required course(s):
- Introduction to International Relations and Diplomacy
Recommended course(s):
Introduction to Globalisation and Transnational Politics;
Introduction to Peace and Conflict Studies;
International and Regional Organisations;
Power in World Politics;
Foundational Texts in World Politics
Description
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing governments in the 21st century. This course provides a comprehensive and critical introduction to international politics and ethics of climate change. It introduces the ethical, political and institutional challenges raised by the global environmental crisis and key political, policy and institutional responses.
The course critically explores different approaches to understanding the climate crisis. We investigate the complex relationship between global governance and climate justice. In doing so, we focus both on normative questions and the empirical issues which make addressing the crisis challenging. In our exploration of the topic, we look at the different roles of states, NGOs, multinational corporations, global governance organizations and social movements in dealing with the climate crisis.
The aim of this course is to provide you with the conceptual tools necessary to understand and contribute to debates about climate change. Upon completing the course, you will be able to interrogate the normative assumptions underlying the policies of states, non-governmental organisations, and the private sector, and have developed a thorough understanding of the political, economic and social factors that contribute to the ongoing climate crisis.
Course Objectives
After completing this module, students will have acquired:
A broad understanding of debates about climate justice and the connection between these debates and recent climate treaty negotiations.
Have gained an understanding of the range of perspectives on environmental issues and how environmental issues may be understood as political issues.
Knowledge of the most influential competing approaches to understanding the climate crisis and the ability to reason about the normative commitments connected to these approaches.
Practical knowledge of how to write a well-structured essay that manages to state a thesis supported by arguments. Practical knowledge about how to engage in multilaterial negotiations about issues of global concern.
Timetable
Timetables for courses offered at Leiden University College in 2024-2025 will be published on this page of the e-Prospectus.
Mode of instruction
Lectures, in-class discussions, student presentations, online assignments.
Students will participate in group discussions and are expected to exchange ideas. The aim of the classes and our discussions is to help us all better understand the arguments/positions we discuss in order to raise important topics for further discussion and develop our analytical skills.
Assessment Method
Assessment takes the following form:
End-of-term paper of max. 3000 words (40%)
Mid-term paper of max. 1500 words (35%)
Class exercise (10%)
Individual class preparation exercises (x 5) (Each exercise counts 3%, for a total of 15%)
Reading list
Wallace-Wells, D. 2019 The Uninhabitable Earth (extract). New York: Tim Duggin Books
Masood, E., Tollefson, J. and Irwin, A. (2022) ‘COP27 climate talks: what succeeded, what failed and what's next’, Nature (London), 612(7938), pp. 16–17.
Rich, N. 2018. “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change” The New York Times Magazine. Publication date: 1 August 2018.
Harrison, K. & McIntosh Sundstrom, L. 2007. “The Comparative Politics of Climate Change” Global Environmental Politics 7(4):1-18
Gardiner, S. 2006. “A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics and the Problem of Moral Corruption” Environmental Values Vol. 15 (3): 397-413
Caney, S. 2010. “Climate change, human rights and moral thresholds” in Stephen Humphreys (ed.), Human Rights and Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. pp. 69-90.
Shue, H. 1993. ‘Subsistence Emissions and Luxury Emissions’, Law & policy, 15(1), pp. 39–60.
Moss, J & Kath, R. 2019 ‘Historical Emissions and the Carbon Budget’ Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol. 36(2): 268-289.
Hale, T. 2020. ‘Transnational Actors and Transnational Governance in Global Environmental Politics’. Annual Review of Political Science. 23:203-220
Sending, O.J, Øverland, I. & Hornburg, T.B. 2020. ‘Climate Change and International Relations: A Five Pronged Research Agenda’ Journal of International Affairs 73(1): 183-193
Allan, J. (2021) The New Climate Activism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (Read only Chapter 3: Understanding and Governing Climate Change)
Wright, C., & Nyberg, D. 2015. Corporate political activity and climate coalitions. In Climate Change, Capitalism, and Corporations: Processes of Creative Self-Destruction (pp. 73-97). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Ostrom, E. 2010. ‘Polycentric systems for coping with collective action and global environmental change’ Global Environmental Change, 20(4): 550-557
Gupta, J. 2016. ‘Climate change governance: history, future and triple‐loop learning?’ WIREs Climate Change, 7:192–210
Clemencon, R. (2016) ‘The Two Sides of the Paris Climate Agreement’, The journal of environment & development, 25(1), pp. 3–24.
Coen, D., Kreienkamp, J. and Pegram, T. (2020) Global Climate Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (only read pages 1-24).
Sapinski, J.P., Buck, H.J. and Malm, A. 2021. Has it come to this? : the promises and perils of geoengineering on the brink. (Only read part 1, Introduction page 3-20)
Sandler, T. 2017. Collective action and geoengineering. Rev Int Organ 13, 105–125
We will also engage in a class activity where we model the process of negotiating a climate treaty, use a simulator developed at MIT and UMass (Lowell) called C-ROADS (https://www.climateinteractive.org/c-roads/).
Registration
Courses offered at Leiden University College (LUC) are usually only open to LUC students and LUC exchange students. Leiden University students who participate in one of the university’s Honours tracks or programmes may register for one LUC course, if availability permits. Registration is coordinated by the Education Coordinator, course.administration@luc.leidenuniv.nl.
Contact
Gerrit Schaafsma, g.schaafsma@luc.leidenuniv.nl
Remarks
-