Climate Politics and Policy (Taught)

With the growing political, financial, and social attention around the causes, impacts and solutions to climate change, there has never been more demand for interdisciplinary approaches to the world’s biggest challenge.

Our MSc Climate Politics and Policy is a multi-disciplinary, research-led programme designed to equip students with a comprehensive understanding of the complex political, social, and economic dynamics underpinning climate change and challenges in its policymaking.

This innovative offering leverages the expertise of the School of Social Science, and that of the School of Geosciences, and engages a diverse team of scholars whose research intersects with the many facets of climate politics.

As we witness our planet and society confront the swift and relentless consequences of climate change, we are also undergoing the largest social, technical, and political transition that humankind has ever seen.

MSc Climate Politics and Policy is a comprehensive programme that provides you with the building blocks of understanding how climate change is impacting every corner of the political world to equip you for careers in any organisation or sector engaging with the climate as a topic of policy and praxis.

This programme provides the opportunity and ability to analyse climate policy as a political arena that is determining the future of our planet. Over the course of the MSc, you will have the chance to examine climate politics and policy within multiple disciplines, looking at issues such as:

• Examining the threats climate poses to the security of various actors and systems

• Climate-induced internal displacement and cross border migration

• The political economy of low carbon solutions

• Political constructions of climate change and its historical origins

• The complexities of sustainable governance and how this is articulated in policy versus the real world

• Human and non-human consequences of international and national climate policy frameworks

• The political psychology of how both individuals and populations react to climate change

In Aberdeen, a city at the heart of the UK’s energy transition, you also have the chance to witness how climate- and energy-oriented policies are taking effect in a historically oil-based economy that it transitioning to a low carbon one.

Ultimately, this MSc can help you develop a deeper understanding of climate politics from a unique perspective that critically examines the solutions in place, and provides an insight that is incredibly valuable to a range of potential employers in a climate-affected world.

Course Modules

Teaching includes a range of interactive methods and approaches to learning in order to enhance students’ critical thinking, presentation, interpersonal, and policy drafting skills.