58228 Climate Change: Politics and Ecology

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular semester, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

Handbook description

With climate change the ecological crisis is visible as a global crisis. Worldwide, it is already exhausting nourishing landscapes, causing extinction of species and displacements of peoples. The possibility of catastrophic climate change is now on the international policy agenda. Low-income societies are in the immediate firing-line, while global elites, about a fifth of the world's population (including most Australians), continue to reap the benefits of carbon-intensive development. Such asymmetries raise profound issues of environmental ethics and justice. These foreground relations between species, between nature and livelihood, between generations, and between young and old, pose a fundamental challenge to notions of sustainable development. To find new possibilities and transformations, this subject engages with climate politics, from global frameworks to local actions. Students analyse climate discourses from scientists, corporate executives, social activists and governments. They investigate key sites of climate politics, such as climate governance and emissions trading, adaptation to new climate conditions, climate action, and mobilisation for climate justice.

Subject objectives/outcomes

At the completion of this subject, students are expected to be able to:

1. analyse strategic questions of climate change through in-depth research
2. identify the social, political and cultural aspects of climate change;
3. conceptualise issues of climate change across localities and across cultures, from the local to the global;
4. research key perspectives on climate change;
5. relate the conceptualization of ecological issues to the analysis of public policy, and to daily life.

Contribution to course aims and graduate attributes

This subject makes a major contribution to the student’s capacity to think analytically, inquire critically and to apply their knowledge and skills, using concepts drawn from political economy, globalisation studies and comparative sociology.
It also makes a minor contribution to the student’s capacity to work ethically and to communicate effectively the outcomes of their research and learning in qualitative and quantitative ways.

Teaching and learning strategies

The subject consists of a weekly lecture and seminar over 13 weeks. Core texts are reproduced in a subject reader; additional resources are available on-line and in the UTS library. The lectures engage students with key concepts and methods while in the tutorials students evaluate theoretical claims through the in-depth analysis of student-driven projects and experiments. Tutorials involve students in a variety of activities, including individual presentations, non-traditional group presentations, discussion groups and formal debates. On-line debates support and extend these tutorial activities.

Content

The subject content falls into three parts: contexts, discourses, sites. The first part is designed as an introduction to ecological politics, debating the relationship between society and ecology with an emphasis on solutions to climate change. In academic and policy debates the requirement for decarbonisation encompasses a spectrum of perspectives. A dominant theme is the hope for closed-loop ‘ecological modernization’, sometimes referred to as ‘second modernity’, where growth is decarbonised by ‘precautionary’ technologies and institutional practices. Ecological sufficiency operates as a counterpoint to ecological modernisation, insisting on low- or no-growth scenarios, often linked to ‘post-developmentalist’ or ‘subsistence’ perspectives. A third theme, ecological socialism, along with variants of ecological feminism, suggests the need for a large-scale restructuring of social relations beyond existing models of capitalism, patriarchy and liberal democracy. The first approach re-masters ecology for society, the second subordinates society to ecology, while the third suggests an entirely new ecology-society nexus (see Harvey 1996).

The second part centres on climate discourses, namely the evidence and arguments that are deployed in seeking to constitute and influence climate politics. Five broad sources are defined: scientific bodies, non-government organizations (NGOs), government agencies, corporate entities, and community-based organizations. In addressing scientific discourses, the focus is on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, established in 1988 by the United Nations (UN) to assess the ‘scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change’. In outlining NGO discourses we focus on the position papers of the international Climate Action Network, established in 1988, that now encompasses 450 NGOs across all five continents. In outlining corporate positions we address lobbies such as the Global Climate Coalition and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Governmental positions in climate negotiations are discussed for instance through analysis of documents from the Group of 77, which has 130 state members, the largest lobby of developing countries at the UN, or the Organisatation of Oil Producing Countries (OPEC). Finally, we address the broad field of CBO engagement with climate politics, from communities affected both by climate change and by climate policy: we may analyse positions taken by island communities imperilled by rising sea levels, mountain-dwellers facing glacier melt, forest communities dealing with carbon traders, or indeed coal-mining communities facing mine closures.

The third part takes us into the worlds of climate politics, where the players and discourses meet, overlap, and come into conflict. A range of sites are selected, depending on student interest, and prevailing dynamics of climate politics. A key focus would be on international climate governance, in terms of the institutions and instruments that have been established through the UN, such as in the field of emissions trading. At the national level we may compare climate politics in a selection of sites, one perhaps in the high-emitting high-income North, the other in the low-emitting low-income South. We may contrast the politics of green-house gas mitigation centred on polluting societies, with that of climate change adaptation centred on affected societies. We may investigate specific instances of climate policy, such as the Clean Development Mechanism Promoted by the UN as a means of reducing emissions in low-income countries. We may also focus on the emergent justice focus of climate politics, as played out in the Climate Justice Movement.

Assessment

Assessment Item 1: Group Debate and Submission

Assessment Item 2: Case Study Facilitation and Submission

Assessment Item 3: Research Essay

Minimum requirements

Attendance is important in this subject because it is based on a collaborative approach which involves essential workshopping and interchange of ideas with other students and the tutor. An attendance roll will be taken at each class. Where possible, students should advise the tutor in a timely manner if they are unable to attend.

Students who fail to attend 85% of classes will be refused to have their final assessment item assessed (see Rule 3.8).

Required texts

Course reader available at UTS union shop

Recommended texts

Urry, J. (2011), Climate Change and Society, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Vanderheiden, S. (ed.) (2008), Political Theory and Global Climate Change, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Other resources

UTS guide to Harvard referencing - http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/students/discover-your-library/referencing-and-writing

ELSSA centre for academic writing and research support - http://www.elssa.uts.edu.au/