LNAK10072U Global Environmental Governance

Global Environmental Governance (GEG) is an interdisciplinary course on how the global community addresses, or ought to address, environmental problems and their solutions.  

The main objective of the course is to provide interdisciplinary knowledge, skills, and competences that can assist you in dealing with global environmental governance in an international and/or national work context.

The course is interdisciplinary in that we take outset in concepts, approaches, and theories from political science, international law, and human geography. We draw mainly on examples from environmental law, global negotiations and different governance areas such as biodiversity, energy and land.

The course has group seminars in that the students in parallel to the classes must write a reflection paper in groups about their seminar work. During the oral exam, students can choose from a broad range of topics for their assignments. 

The lectures fall into the following six modules:

1. Introduction to the general field of GEG
2. The emergence of ideas and ideologies about global environmental problems and their solutions.    
3. GEG actors, architecture, and international relations (perspectives mainly from political science and human geography)
4. State-led governance including global regulation, institutions, and regimes (perspectives mainly from international law)
5. Market-led governance, including governance of trade-offs between environment and economy (perspectives mainly from political economy)
6. The role of non-state actors in GEG and role of bottom-up initiatives in governance

Since the course has different teachers with different schedules, the succession of the modules and lectures may not necessarily follow a straight path from 1) - 6). 

The course includes one excursion to national or international organizations located in Copenhagen and knowledgeable about, relevant to, and active in GEG.

Relevance for sustainability: The vision about social, economic, and environmental sustainability underpins all topics, discussions, and assignments in the course. We look at the concept of sustainability as one of the milestones in the development of current ideas and ideologies about global environmental problems and their solutions. Some lectures and assignments may address sustainability or the sustainable development goals as a distinct topic in GEG.

Digitalization: If possible, most lectures will be on-site. Some lectures may be offered digitally and records made available. Some lectures, whether onsite or online, will draw on digital e-learning tools.