IR5926 Global Climate Policy

Academic year

2025 to 2026 Semester 2

Further information on which modules are specific to your programme.

Key module information

SCOTCAT credits

30

The Scottish Credit Accumulation and Transfer (SCOTCAT) system allows credits gained in Scotland to be transferred between institutions. The number of credits associated with a module gives an indication of the amount of learning effort required by the learner. European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) credits are half the value of SCOTCAT credits.

SCQF level

SCQF level 11

The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) provides an indication of the complexity of award qualifications and associated learning and operates on an ascending numeric scale from Levels 1-12 with SCQF Level 10 equating to a Scottish undergraduate Honours degree.

Availability restrictions

Available to students on the University’s International Relations MLitt courses

Planned timetable

Tues 3-5pm, except Wk 1 Tues 4-6pm

This information is given as indicative. Timetable may change at short notice depending on room availability.

Module coordinator

Dr Y A Collins

Dr Y A Collins
This information is given as indicative. Staff involved in a module may change at short notice depending on availability and circumstances.

Module Staff

Dr A Collins

This information is given as indicative. Staff involved in a module may change at short notice depending on availability and circumstances.

Module description

This module problematizes climate change. It identifies the actors, systems and power structures that resist and/or facilitate its address, while charting the major attempts of the international political system to create norms, regimes, rules and institutions to govern it in the last half century. Despite a dominant theoretical reliance on poststructuralism, the module draws on a variety of theoretical and policy insights while inviting students to engage with how the problem of climate change underlies different issues of global concern, especially in terms of conflict and security. Students will be challenged to demonstrate how climate change intersects with a particular security and/or conflict related issue of social, economic or political concern, while demonstrating how climate change, in turn, exacerbates or ameliorates this concern.

Assessment pattern

100% coursework

Re-assessment

100% Written Exam

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact

Weekly 2-hour seminar x11 weeks

Scheduled learning hours

22

The number of compulsory student:staff contact hours over the period of the module.

Guided independent study hours

253

The number of hours that students are expected to invest in independent study over the period of the module.

Intended learning outcomes

  • Understand the emergence and intractability of the problem of climate change
  • Develop familiarity with varied theoretical and policy approaches that engage with the problem
  • Understand climate change related issues as related to or co-constitutive of other global challenges rather than as primarily an externality
  • Formulate policy responses sensitive to climate change related concerns