GV3L2      Half Unit
The Politics and Policy of Climate Change and Sustainability

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Requisites

Additional requisites:

Prior coursework in public policy, comparative politics, or equivalent. Some knowledge of research design and a basic understanding of the physical science of climate change would be advantageous.

This course introduces students to the policy interventions and underlying political dynamics that shape the pace and direction of efforts to mitigate climate change and improve sustainability. Students will unpack the conceptual foundations of climate politics, assess climate and sustainability problems across a variety of practical cases, and learn to prescribe and justify policy interventions to accelerate sustainability transitions.

A unifying theme of the course will be its frequent attention to the political economy of climate (in)action. Specific topics include carbon lock-in; climate activism and obstruction; environmental authoritarianism; national climate institutions; corporate climate governance; just transition agreements; energy subsidies and carbon pricing; and geoengineering. The case studies in this course focus primarily, but not exclusively, on domestic environmental politics in advanced industrialized democracies.

10 hours of lectures and 15 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

Video

Essay plan

Students will be expected to submit formative assessment in the WT.

•    Carter, Neil. The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy. Cambridge University Press (2018).
•    Seto, Karen C., et al. “Carbon lock-in: Types, causes, and policy implications.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 41 (2016): 425-452.
•    Colgan, Jeff D., Jessica F. Green, and Thomas N Hale. “Asset revaluation and the existential politics of climate change.” International Organization 75.2 (2021): 586–610.
•    Vormedal, Irja and Jonas Meckling. “How foes become allies: The shifting role of business in climate politics.” Policy Sciences 57 (2024): 101–124.
•    Finnegan, Jared J. “Institutions, climate change, and the foundations of long-term policymaking.” Comparative Political Studies (2022).
•    Breetz, Hanna, Matto Mildenberger, and Leah Stokes. “The political logics of clean energy transitions.” Business and Politics 20.4 (2018): 492-522.
•    Fankhauser, Sam, et al. “The meaning of net zero and how to get it right.” Nature Climate Change 12.1 (2022): 15–21.
•    Hochstetler, Kathryn (2021). Political Economies of Energy Transition: Wind and Solar Power in Brazil and South Africa. Cambridge University Press. Chapter 1.

Video (20%) in Spring Term Week 2

Research design (80%, 2500 words) in Spring Term Week 2

Students will create up to two 4–6 minute video blog posts interpreting a recent event through the lens of course material (one must be uploaded in the first half of term, and one in the second half of term), of which one will be submitted for assessment.

Students will also submit a research design in the Spring Term.