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Dr Michael Lerner

This course is available on the BSc in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, BSc in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (with a Year Abroad), BSc in Politics, BSc in Politics and Data Science, BSc in Politics and Economics, BSc in Politics and History, BSc in Politics and International Relations and BSc in Politics and Philosophy. This course is not available as an outside option nor to General Course students.

This course has a limited number of places (it is capped) and demand is typically very high. This course is capped at 1 group.

Prior coursework in public policy, comparative politics, or equivalent. 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 advocacy and obstruction; environmental authoritarianism; corporate climate governance; national climate institutions; 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 WT.

There will be a reading week in Week 6 of the Winter Term.

Students will be expected to produce 1 piece of coursework in the WT.

Bernstein, Steven, and Matthew Hoffmann. “Climate politics, metaphors and the fractal carbon trap.” Nature Climate Change 9.12 (2019): 919-925.

Seto, Karen C., et al. “Carbon lock-in: Types, causes, and policy implications.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 41 (2016): 425-452.

Parris, Thomas M., and Robert W. Kates. “Characterizing a sustainability transition: Goals, targets, trends, and driving forces.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100.14 (2003): 8068-8073.

Meckling, Jonas. “Oppose, Support, or Hedge? Distributional Effects, Regulatory Pressure, and Business Strategy in Environmental Politics.” Global Environmental Politics 15.2 (2015): 19-37.

Stroup, Sarah S., and Wendy H. Wong. The Authority Trap. Cornell University Press (2017). Chapter 1.

Finnegan, Jared J. “Institutions, climate change, and the foundations of long-term policymaking.” Comparative Political Studies (2022).

Baldwin, Elizabeth, Sanya Carley, and Sean Nicholson-Crotty. “Why do countries emulate each other’s policies? A global study of renewable energy policy diffusion.” World Development 120 (2019): 29-45.

Stokes, Leah C. Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Groups and the Battle over Clean Energy and Climate Policy in the American States. Oxford University Press (2020). Chapter 1.

Video (20%) in the WT.
Research paper (80%) in the ST.

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.

The research paper will consist of a comparative case analysis of 2500 words.