SP443      Half Unit
Social Policy of Climate Change

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Climate change is one of the world’s most pressing problems with significant implications for human’s welfare and wellbeing both now and in the future. Swift and significant policy action is therefore necessary to both adapt to and mitigate climate change.

This course examines the social and public policy of climate change, from both a domestic and international perspective, drawing on research from disciplines such as economics, political science, public policy, and social policy. In doing so, the course is divided in to three parts:

• First, the course documents the nature of the problem at hand by exploring the measurement of climate change and its possible human and societal impacts.
• Second, we focus on policy responses to climate change, examining how policy is formulated and implemented at both the domestic and international level.
• Finally, the course focuses on applying these insights and tools to issues such as economic development, migration, non-governmental organisations, and political violence.

In completing the course students will have a fuller understanding of the societal impacts of climate change and policy responses, with an eye to communicating scientific evidence to an audience of academics, policymakers, and stakeholders.

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

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

All teaching will be in accordance with the LSE Academic Code which specifies a minimum of two hours taught contact time per week when the course is running in the Autumn Term (AT) and/or Winter Term (WT). Social Policy courses are predominantly taught through a combination of in-person lectures and In person classes/seminars. Further information will be provided by the Course Convenor in the first lecture of the course.

Essay in Winter Term Week 5

Students will be expected to produce 1 essay in the WT.

The formative coursework consists of a 500 word outline of the student's planned scientific review (summative coursework). Students should outline their topic of interest and some examples of relevant scientific literature. From there students will explain how they plan on conducting the full review and the type of questions/problems this review will be able to help answer.

Readings will consist of academic articles and/or selected chapters from books for each. There is no one textbook for the course.

Illustrative Readings:

• IPCC.Global Warming of 1.5◦C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 ◦C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty. 2018
• Simon Dietz, Alex Bowen, Baran Doda, Ajay Gambhir, and Rachel Warren. The economics of 1.5 ◦c climate change. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 43 (1):455–480, 2018a. doi: 10.1146/annurev-environ-102017-025817. URL https://doi. org/10.1146/annurev-environ-102017-025817
• Chukwumerije Okereke and Philip Coventry. Climate justice and the international regime: before, during, and after paris. WIREs Climate Change, 7(6):834–851, 2016. doi: 10.1002/wcc.419. URL https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wcc. 419
• Elinor Ostrom. Coping with tragedies of the commons. Annual Review of Political Science, 2(1):493, 1999. ISSN 10942939. URL http://0-search.ebscohost.com.serlib0. essex.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=5366745&site=ehost-live
• Nives Dolšak and Aseem Prakash. Three faces of climate justice. Annual Review of Political Science, Forthcoming
• Seema Jayachandran. How Economic Development Influences the Environment. Annual Review of Economics, 14(1):229–252, 2022. doi: 10.1146/annurev-economics-082321-123803.
• Michele M. Betsill and Elisabeth Corell. Ngo influence in international environmental negotiations: A framework for analysis. Global Environmental Politics, 1(4):65–85,2001. doi: 10.1162/152638001317146372. URL https://doi.org/10.1162/152638001317146372
• Celia McMichael. Climatic and environmental change, migration, and health. Annual Review of Public Health, 44(1):null, 2023. doi: 10.1146/annurev-publhealth-071421-045148. URL https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-071421-045148. PMID: 36542773
• Vally Koubi. Climate change and conflict. Annual Review of Political Science, 22(1): 343–360, 2019. doi: 10.1146/annurev-polisci-050317-070830. URL https://doi.org/ 10.1146/annurev-polisci-050317-070830

Exam (100%), duration: 180 Minutes in the Spring exam period

Students will sit a 3 hour in-person Exam in the Spring term. Students must answer 2 questions from a choice of 8 (one question from section A and one from Section B). The recommended word count is 2400 (approximately 1200 per question).