Scientists worldwide agree that human-induced climate change is occurring and have documented the environmental scenarios that humanity is moving towards. Widespread awareness about such impacts and ensuing policy actions to address it, are a relatively recent phenomenon. The creation of climate policy mechanisms and international legal instruments has been the result of a series of complex, long-lasting negotiation processes that include multiple stakeholders acting across multiple scales and potentially influence global socio-economic, cultural and ethical conducts. Thus, climate governance must be analyzed over various spatial, temporal and system scales.
This course examines climate change governance by looking at the interaction between these multiple elements, beginning with a historical overview of the scientific evidence, the mechanisms for that knowledge to permeate into decision making, the multilateral, regional, national and sub-national governance spheres and the most current state of affairs.
Special attention will be drawn to:
effective science-policy interfacing mechanisms,
the structure of multi-level organizations to enable cooperation and dialogue,
the existence of appropriate legal instruments,
special governance considerations in especially vulnerable ecosystems (like poles and the ocean).
This class is an opportunity to explore in-depth how different land-uses and conservation approaches intermingle in one particular region: the Southwest of Costa Rica. The purpose of the field trip is to obtain critical direct experience and knowledge of important natural resources management issues in a developing country, given the real political, economic and natural resources context of the same. This course enables students to assess the contextual factors that affect natural resource management. Over the course of the trip, we will visit and be exposed to projects and issues with various resources, different actors involved in the management and different institutional settings. As such it will be a chance for you to integrate ideas from many of the classes you have taken over the course of your program, as well as a chance to learn from some of your peers about the topics to which you were not exposed during your program.
In this course we will become familiar with contemporary issues in sustainable agriculture and critically analyze key debates in the field. To provide context to our discussions, we will situate the emergence of sustainable agricultural practices within their historic contexts. To identify contemporary issues in sustainable agriculture and key debates, we will be guided by a United Nations report for the post-2015 development agenda. Throughout our course students will examine contemporary issues through a critical review of the published literature and through hands-on experience with farmers and representatives of agribusiness. To ensure we relate theory to real world sustainability issues, we will engage in multiple field visits and examine international case studies during our sessions.
This course will take a close look at the linkages between environment and development. We will discuss the different root causes of environmental and social or development crises as they come forward in the literature, focusing on a series of highly contested concepts and narratives around overpopulation, economic growth, and free market capitalism and globalization. Part of this discussion will be an analysis of the responses to these crises and what can, should and is being done to stop them.
We will take a closer look at the different linkages between environment and armed conflicts. We will discuss the literature on environmental security, going from older frameworks of scarcity induced conflicts to more complex notions of natural resource abundance, ecological limits, limits to growth, and ecological security, integrating globalization, and historical, political, ecological and economic issues that influence development, environment, and peace and conflicts.
The term “sustainable development” was coined over thirty years ago, and imagined as a way of redirecting development by incorporating social justice, equity, and environmental concerns into conceptions of development that had focused primarily on economic growth. This led to a proliferation in definitions of what sustainability means or could mean, in indicators of sustainability. A huge variety of worldviews, academic disciplines, and actors has adopted the terms sustainability and sustainable development. Nevertheless, many would argue that little overall real change has taken place. The environmental crisis and growing social and economic inequalities are still paramount. Furthermore, there is much debate about how one can “measure” anything as complex as sustainability, and about the politics of who is doing or asking for the measuring. This class will explore the merits and shortcomings of the idea of sustainability, explore the politics of measuring from different perspectives and worldviews, and analyze the simplification inherent in measuring, give an overview of mainstream and alternative sets of indicators and assessment tools.
By 2050, it is estimated that two-thirds of the world’s population will live in an urban environment. In many countries in the developing world, this is already a reality, with 80-90% of their populations living in cities, with increasing and rapid rates of urbanization. Increased urban population growth, paired with other socio-economic realities that are characteristic to cities, poses enormous challenges to ensure quality of life and wellbeing for everyone, leaving no one behind.
Urban sustainability goes beyond how "green" a city is. This course will be based on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and the New Urban Agenda, and will provide an understanding on how sustainability in cities is a multi-variable concept, interconnected with other SDGs and issues such as urban planning, transport planning and design, inequality, climate action, health, gender, economic development, among others. You will learn from case studies, site visits and the experience of experts in the field, in addition to gaining tools and developing skills that will help you propose strategies, projects and policies to improve your community, town or city in order to make it more sustainable.
In the first part of the course, students will analyze and discuss different theoretical and conceptual approaches to adaptation to climate change; these include: mitigation, adaptation, transformation, and resilience. We will then examine climate justice and human rights. Next, we will examine climate justice movements led by indigenous peoples, women, and youth. Lastly, we will focus on one key climate justice project and create and present a funding campaign for this project.