Climate Change, Environment and Society MSc

This module will cover issues around the management of uncertainty and trade-offs, enhancing co-benefits between mitigation and adaptation, adapting to multiple risks in complex systems, understanding climate governance and notions of climate justice.

This module is an introduction to climate risk management, covering the fundamental concepts and principles that underpin contemporary approaches to managing the risks that climate change poses to the natural and built environment, infrastructure, and socio-economic structures and systems.

The module explores the methods and tools that are used by governments, businesses and non-governmental organisations to evaluate the impacts of climate change on society and the environment, taking account of costs, benefits and trade-offs, alongside the strategies, management options and solutions for reducing the future risks of climate-related damage and harm.

The aim of the module is to introduce climate risk management, including the concepts and methods used, alongside case study examples of how climate risk management operates in practice.

This module will critically examine the geographies of environmental and climate (in)justice. Through in-depth case studies, the module will explore how (in)justices are actively (re)constructed through the interplay between policies, politics and power. You will look at case studies across the Global North and South, and at national to local scales, exploring procedural, recognitional, distributive, intergenerational and reparative debates in environmental management and responses to climate change.

The aim of this module is to introduce students to the range of injustices and justice dilemmas associated with environmental and climate change decision-making. The module will critically examine the ways in which (in)justice is (re)constructed, sustained and challenged, and corresponding implications for achieving just futures.

This module will introduce you to a breadth of techniques relevant to addressing practical environmental sustainability challenges. These techniques relate to human and physical components of environmental sustainability problems and engage with quantitative and qualitative data. You will be required to integrate these methods and address a real-world environment sustainability challenge

This module will also incorporate:

• methods for designing and implementing studies to assess environmental impacts of human activity
• stakeholder mapping and engagement
• methods for aiding decision-making under uncertainty
• common statistical techniques for analysing environmental data
• displaying data clearly to communicate to diverse audiences
• extracting information from various textual sources
• spatial representation of environmental information

This module will develop skills in project design and project management for environmental settings and incorporate preparation for the Project. Students will work on scoping their project aims and designing their project with supervisors, and will develop practical skills in project management. This module is taught by seminars and supervision meetings with a project supervisor.

This module will require students to research an environmental, sustainability and/or climate change issue under the supervision of an appropriate member of staff and to report their findings in the form of a written report (12,000 words) or other relevant format as approved by the module convenor. Key skills developed include those of independent study, critical analysis, problem articulation, solution design and report writing.

The aim of this module is to allow students to make a detailed independent analysis of an applied environmental, sustainability and/or climate change challenge of their choice and to report their findings or proposed solutions in appropriate ways. The module will encourage the analysis of a topical issue from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students will be expected to link up and explore several areas of study covered during their MSc Climate Change, Environment and Society.

This module aims to introduce students to river and catchment processes, the links between river habitats and the ecosystems they support, their need for management in light of anthropogenic impacts, and common techniques (i.e. in-situ monitoring and GIS/remote sensing) for providing the evidence needed for effective river/catchment management.

The module covers past mismanagement of river environments and explains how changes in our understanding of catchments (and the waterbodies they support) and the increasing adoption of modern management strategies and technologies are advancing our ability to manage rivers and catchments in a sustainable manner.

In this module, you will learn:

• Key river and catchment processes
• Impacts of anthropogenic (ie climate, land-use) change on rivers and catchments
• Current and historic river/catchment management practises
• Interactions between physical habitats of rivers and the ecosystems they support
• Tools and techniques for monitoring and mapping rivers and catchments
• Modelling rivers and catchments to test management scenarios 

This module considers:

• The emergence and development of the International Climate Change Law: Institutions, principles, and early UN agreements
• The Paris Agreement
• Climate Change and Energy: The energy transition from the perspective of international and EU law
• Climate Change and Forests: The protection of the world’s carbon sinks from the perspectives of the international and EU law
• Market mechanisms
• Climate justice: Small islands’ perspectives
• Climate Change Litigation I: Theory and practice by reference to landmark domestic cases
• Climate Change Litigation II: Regional and international courts
• Grand challenges ahead: From climate migration to geoengineering technologies

This module aims to provide you with a foundational knowledge of the international climate change law and selected EU climate law and policy aspects. The emphasis will be placed on understanding the broad architecture of the subject and its main challenges. You will be introduced to the historical development and main features of climate change international agreements, such as principles, objectives, commitments, differentiation, action areas, and implementation mechanisms.

This module will allow students to understand how psychology relates to contemporary issues and debates. Students will have the opportunity to specialise in one area and consider the deeper implications for the world and society. It includes topics such as health behaviours, the environment and climate change, psychology of women and others. Students will write an extended essay in the specified area, with support from an academic.

The module provides a big-picture state-of-the-art summary of one the greatest threats to global society, the climate crisis, including some of the options for reducing future climate change and ways in which society can build resilience to a warmer world.

The module covers key areas that inform the climate change debate, including: projections of future climate change and confidence in them, climate policy, projected impacts of climate change on society and the natural environment, adapting to climate change, and mitigation of climate change. The module content is informed by the research specialisms of the teaching staff who are climate change experts in their fields.

This module will provide an introduction to the central issues facing people and the environment in the Anthropocene. The first half of the module will explore key themes and approaches for understanding these environmental issues. These may include Environmental Knowledge(s), Risk perception, Ecosystem services, Environmental Governance, Gender issues, and legal perspectives. The second half of the module will engage with these concepts in the context of current environmental issues, such as climate change, pollution, biodiversity, urbanisation, and water management.

The aim of this module is to introduce you to key global environmental issues at the nexus of people and the environment. The module will explore critical approaches to these environmental problems, and their impact on society.

This module will provide an introduction to the relationship between economic activities and climate change. The first half of the module will examine the history, scope, and scale of the exploitation of natural resources by capitalist societies. It will review the history of resource extraction, the globalisation of supply chains, fossil fuel consumption and the financialization of nature. It will summarise the uneven global dynamics of the causes and impacts of climate change risks.

The second half of the module will engage with debates around the governance and management of economic transitions and climate risk. It will examine the roles played by the private sector, policy makers and NGOs in economic transitions to sustainable, low carbon economies. This will open up debates around government transition policies toward low carbon economies and the distributional issues generated by such policies. In doing so, it will evaluate the design and implementation of public policies and private sector initiatives that aim to mitigate climate risk.

This module provides you with a compelling insight into environmental health, one of the most diverse and exciting areas of public health, and introduces the fascinating concept of one health and what this collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach has to offer. It explores climate change in a way that not only enhances understanding of cause and affect but inspires thought and discussion of innovative and inspirational interventions to address negative impacts and enhance human and planetary renaissance.

The module has a strong focus on developing your critical thinking skills and encourages you to be confident in embracing new ideas and ways of working, through understanding the importance and benefits of innovation and partnership working. You will develop communication skills that will allow you to deliver public health messages to a variety of audiences.