Green Justice - POL00089I

«Back to module search

Module summary

This module provides an understanding of environmental, climate, and energy injustice as emerging phenomena globally, while exploring the pathways to a more equitable future. It moves from analysing the root causes of these disparities to examining activism, advocacy, and policy as key solutions for creating a just and more sustainable world.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 2 2026-27

Module aims

Part 1 of the module focuses on injustice associated with environmental degradation, climate change, and energy systems and their impacts on marginalised communities. It delves into the root causes, including historical colonialism and socioeconomic inequalities. Part 2 is focused on responses and solutions and is divided into two elements. First, students explore activism and advocacy, and the strategies and approaches employed by communities and civil society organisations to demand justice and hold powerful actors accountable. It highlights case studies of grassroots initiatives and efforts by organisations and movements to institutionalise demands. It will explore different pathways and modes of environmental activism, such as engagement with parties, different forms of protest, or corporate initiatives. And second, the module focuses on policies and programmes in the energy, climate, and environmental sectors.

This UG2 module equips students with a 'justice' lens for looking at global environmental issues and how they are addressed, but has wider relevance to an understanding of the theories, institutions, power dynamics, and policies that can be applied to other modules at UG2 and UG3. The module builds on Global Challenges and the Policy Lab (Stage 1) and links into existing modules such as Challenges of Global Development (Stage 2). For UG3, the module supports understanding of justice-based arguments and discourses such as within: political conflicts within green politics (Green Politics), environmental problems and linkages with histories of capitalism and colonialism (The Politics of Post-colonialism), conflict and authoritarianism (Ethnicity and Conflict, Politics of Peace After Civil War, Politics in the Middle East: Regimes and Societies in Transition), and synergies and tensions between justice and development (Development Paradigms, Global Food Systems, Global Sustainability and Energy Policy, Advanced Issues and Skills in Global Development). Overall, it responds to ever-increasing student interest in the environment and climate change. Its focus on solutions in Part 2 responds to student interest in understanding solutions (as well as problems), as revealed in a SLEF project completed by PIR staff. Intersectional awareness of dimensions such as gender and decolonial thinking are cross-cutting issues, threaded through the module in different weeks and topic blocks.

In terms of summative assessment, students will be asked to produce a portfolio of three pieces of writing. The first piece (1000 words) will focus on the 'justice' block and will consist of an update or new entry on the 'Environmental Justice Atlas' (ejatlas.org). The second piece will be a 1000-word policy brief targeted towards government or civil society actors. The third piece (500 words) will be a reflective piece that explains the decisions made in pieces 1 and 2 and reflecting back on those decisions. Only one mark will be given for the whole portfolio. Students will be free to select their own topics for each part of the assessment but will have to get them approved by teaching staff as part of formative assessment (Week 8). The formative assessment will also require producing plans or outlines for each part of the portfolio.

Module learning outcomes

• Exhibit comprehensive knowledge of the origins, evolution, and contemporary dynamics of politics and international relations linked to environment and climate change (PLO1)

• Apply theories, concepts, and methods to independently analyse climate and environmental politics, using critical reasoning and empirical testing where appropriate to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses (PLO2)

• Research independently by identifying suitable assessment questions, drawing on theories and concepts and applying them to real-world problems of politics and international relations linked to climate change and environment (PLO3)

• Work independently to address problems in environment and climate change linked to institutions, organisations and groups at different scales, by applying advanced theoretical and practical perspectives and analysing relevant data (PLO4)

• Communicate complex conceptual, and empirical ideas effectively into a portfolio of clear, accessible outputs for a variety of academic and broader audiences (PLO5)

• Apply perspectives from Politics/International Relations as appropriate in dealing with local, national and global climate and environmental challenges (PLO7)

Module content

Week 1:

Introduction: What do we mean by ‘injustice’? Why do activism, advocacy and policy matter in the environment and climate space?

Week 2 – Topic block 1: Environmental justice

Week 3 – Topic block 1: Climate justice

Week 4 – Topic block 1: Energy justice

Week 5 - Topic block 1: Intergenerational justice and planetary justice

Week 6 – Topic block 2: Activism: parties and the democratic process

Week 7 – Topic block 2: Activism: Campaigns, civil society organisations and movements

Week 8 – Topic block 3: Policy: The Climate Change Act

Week 9 – Topic block 3: Policy: The Paris Agreement and its Implementation; Are COPs still fit for purpose and what can earth system governance look like?

Week 10 – Conclusions and assessment preparation

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Module feedback

Students will receive written timely feedback on their formative assessment. They will also have the opportunity to discuss their feedback during the module tutor’s feedback and guidance hours.

Students will receive written feedback on their summative assessment no later than 25 working days; and the module tutor will hold a specific session to discuss feedback, which students can also opt to attend. They will also have the opportunity to discuss their feedback during the module tutor’s regular feedback and guidance hours.

Indicative reading

• Krauss, J.E., Jiménez Cisneros, A. and Requena-i-Mora, M. (2022) ‘Mapping Sustainable Development Goals 8, 9, 12, 13 and 15 through a decolonial lens: falling short of “transforming our world”’, Sustainability Science, 17(5), pp. 1855–1872. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01112-3.

• Collins, Y.A. et al. (2021) ‘Plotting the coloniality of conservation’, Journal of Political Ecology, 28(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.4683.

• Sovacool, B.K. et al.(2020) ‘The decarbonisation divide: contextualizing landscapes of low-carbon exploitation and toxicity in Africa’, Global Environ Change, 60. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.102028

• Lockwood, M. (2021) ‘A hard act to follow? The evolution and performance of UK climate governance’, Environmental Politics, 30, 26-48.

• Goldthau, A., Eicke, L., Weko, S. (2020). The Global Energy Transition and the Global South. In: Hafner, M., Tagliapietra, S. (eds) The Geopolitics of the Global Energy Transition. Lecture Notes in Energy, vol 73. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39066-2_14

• Berthod, O., Blanchet, T., Busch, H. et al. The Rise and Fall of Energy Democracy: 5 Cases of Collaborative Governance in Energy Systems. Environmental Management 71, 551–564 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-022-01687-8

• Peterson, L., & van Asselt, H. (2025). Assessing risks to the implementation of NDCs under the Paris Agreement. Climate Policy, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2025.2513023

• Pellow, D.N., 2025. What is critical environmental justice?. John Wiley & Sons.

• Schlosberg, D. and Collins, L.B., 2014. From environmental to climate justice: climate change and the discourse of environmental justice. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 5(3), pp.359-374.

• Pedersen, S., Stevis, D. and Kalfagianni, A., 2024. What is planetary justice?. Environmental Politics, 33(7), pp.1137-1145.

• Sändig, J. and Hönke, J., 2024. Challenging Chinese mining companies: NGO advocacy practices and the’boomerang model’. Africa’s global infrastructures: South–south transformations in practice, pp.103-126.

• Bratman, E.Z., 2014. Contradictions of green development: Human rights and environmental norms in light of Belo Monte dam activism. Journal of Latin American Studies, 46(2), pp.261-289.

• Redford, K. and Gevisser, M. eds., 2023. The revolution will not be litigated: People power and legal power in the 21st century. or Books.