15376

SoSe 22: Global environmental politics

Lena Partzsch

Kommentar

This seminar accompanies the public lecture series “Stockholm+50: Five decades of global environmental governance”, Mon. 16:15-17:45 (attendance required). Heads of state met for the first time to address global environmental problems 50 years ago, in Stockholm in 1972, for the United Nations (UN) Conference on the Human Environment. Since then, the world has witnessed many environmental summits and appeals for sustainable development, most recently, the Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. While climate change receives the most attention, in 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda with a set of wide-ranging goals that articulate the desired outcome of sustainable development in diverse areas: the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The course and lecture series start with “the green targets” of Agenda 2030, i.e. SDG 13 (Climate Action), and SDG 15 (Life on Land), SDG 14 (Life below Water) and SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation). The following sessions cover the SDGs with environmental trade-offs and synergies, in particular, SDG 2 (Food Security), SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG12 (Responsible Consumption and Production). In addition, we look at the role that cities (SDG 11) and partnerships (SDG 17) might play for an environmentally sound implementation of Agenda 2030 and conclude with a synthesis. Students prepare and moderate each public lecture. Instead of a classic term paper (Hausarbeit), students conduct and transcribe an interview with a guest lecturer based on his/her manuscript. The aim is to outline the full spectrum of sustainability perceptions, to identify governance failure and responsibilities, and to allow developing alternative and innovative approaches to accelerate a transition to sustainability. Schließen