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Managing the Climate Emergency

Module description

The declaration of a climate emergency by national and local governments, organisations and institutions highlights the need to effectively manage the transition towards a low-carbon future. However, the dominant approach for managing this transition has been to rely on top-down, expert-led knowledge about climate mitigation and adaptation. This approach can marginalise other forms of knowledge and limit the participation of publics. In this module we challenge this approach by demonstrating the complex and contested nature of managing the climate emergency. In so doing, we use both different scales of analysis and a range of case studies to highlight the limitations of current conceptualisations of climate change management. We demonstrate alternative approaches for deeper forms of engagement with the climate emergency, highlighting the importance of the self, community and nature. We explore ways of understanding and managing the climate emergency through, amongst others, analyses of social practices, nature connectedness, knowledge co-production, landscape adaptation and organisational change. 

Module aims - intentions of the module

Managing the Climate Emergency aims to develop your self-awareness and academic rigour in understanding and evaluating the approaches of individuals, communities, organisations and institutions towards responding to the climate emergency. In so doing, the module aims to introduce you to a range of epistemological perspectives for managing climate change and its impacts, which are then explored and exemplified at different scales. The module will equip you with a practical understanding of the challenges and opportunities of developing policies for managing climate change, and will engage with regional case studies drawn from academic research. 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Articulate in writing the different epistemological approaches towards managing climate change.
• 2. Articulate in writing the challenges and opportunities of different approaches for managing climate change at different scales.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Articulate in writing the role of epistemology in understanding environmental change in an inter-disciplinary context.
• 4. Convey in writing the contingent and contested nature of environmental knowledges.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Evidence in writing the ability to critically evaluate evidence and situate this within a place-based context.
• 6. Evidence in writing the ability to undertake self-directed study and research.

Syllabus plan

• Introduction: epistemologies of managing the climate emergency
• Theme 1*
• Theme 2*
• Theme 3*
• Assessment support and revision session

*Themes will reflect a range of contemporary issues from the module lecturers’ research, which will cover local and regional responses to the climate and ecological emergency. The following is an indicative list:

• Place-based approaches to sustainable living (e.g. socio-technical transitions in energy, waste, transport and food)
• Knowledge controversies and environmental ‘flashpoints’ (e.g. landscape adaptation, low-traffic neighbourhoods and renewable energy schemes)
• Knowledge and learning for climate change (e.g. co-producing environmental knowledges, education at a time of emergency and tackling climate change in higher education)
• Creative responses to climate change (e.g. climate stories for engaging publics, nature connection and climate activism, and eco-anxiety and agency)

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to redo the relevant assessment. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Barr S (2015). Beyond behaviour change: social practice theory and the search for sustainable mobility. In Kennedy E, Cohen M, Krogman N (Eds.) Putting Sustainability into Practice: applications and advances in research on sustainable consumption, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 91-108.
• Barr S, Woodley E (2019). Enabling Communities for a changing climate: re-configuring spaces of hazard governance. Geoforum, 100, 116-127.
• Devine-Wright P, Whitmarsh L, Gatersleben B, O’Neill S, Hartley S, Burningham K, Sovacool B, Barr S, Anable J (2022). Placing people at the heart of climate action. PLOS Climate, 1(5).
• Leichenko R, & O'Brien K (2019). Climate and society: Transforming the future. John Wiley & Sons.
• Monroe M C, Plate R R, Oxarart A, Bowers A & Chaves W A (2019). Identifying effective climate change education strategies: A systematic review of the research. Environmental Education Research, 25(6), 791-812.
• Shove E (2014). Putting practice into policy: reconfiguring questions of consumption and climate change. Contemporary Social Science, 9(4), 415-429.
• Woodley E, Barr S, Stott P, Thomet P, Flint S, Lovell F, O'Malley E, Plews D, Rapley C, Robbins C, et al (2022). Climate Stories: enabling and sustaining arts interventions in climate science communication. Geoscience Communication, 5(4), 339-354. 

Key words search

Climate change, transformation, resilience, coproduction, sustainability, geography