Global Sustainable Development News

Global Sustainable Development (GSD) is pleased to announce a new undergraduate joint honours degree in partnership with Warwick’s Centre for Education Studies. Education Studies and GSD, a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences (BASc) degree, will launch in Autumn 2020.

About the course

Education is essential in enabling a more sustainable future. It is a fundamental tool in the promotion and achievement of all the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and Goal 4 specifically sets targets for Quality Education. This unique degree programme, therefore, represents a flagship contribution to UNESCO’s International Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) agenda, and its graduates will be well-positioned to make a difference to their world now and in the future.

The teaching for this course will be split equally between the GSD Department and the Centre for Education Studies. The combination of subjects will allow students to explore the relationship between education and Sustainable Development and the challenges facing the education sector at home and abroad. This transdisciplinary programme will also encourage students to discover new ways to promote learning about sustainability challenges.

“This degree offers students an in-depth understanding of the contemporary social and environmental challenges that face our world, but also how education might be conceived and practiced, in a manner that finally realises its long touted potential to respond. Education must be a core component of the Sustainable Development agenda, and this degree will well equip students to make sure of this!”
Dr Alastair Smith, Senior Teaching Fellow, GSD

Applications

Education Studies and GSD (BASc) is now available on UCAS for applications for 2020 entry. If you’re interested in applying, please find out more about this unique degree on our Department page and our Study Page. If you have any questions about the course or admissions, please get in touch with our Department or our Undergraduate Admissions Team.

A sperm whale that died after stranding on the Isle of Harris in Scotland had 100kg of litter in its stomach, including fishing nets, rope, packing straps, bags and plastic cups. Dr Jess Savage, a Senior Teaching Fellow in Global Sustainable Development, warns that "the long-term impacts of plastic waste are only just beginning to become apparent". She suggests that tackling ocean pollution will take more than banning single-use plastics.

Warwick's Undergraduate Research Support Scheme (URSS) is an exciting opportunity for students from different disciplines to undertake cutting-edge research over the summer. Each year, the URSS hosts a showcase to celebrate each participant's achievements. This year, the showcase took place on Wednesday 13 November 2019 in the Rootes Building on campus. The event was a great opportunity for participants to display their own work and also engage with other students' research.

Four GSD students were involved in the scheme this year (see below). They presented their research on a range of topics including microplastics in river sediment, sustainable finance in Singapore, climate change in Italy and an economic framework for carbon neutrality. Congratulations to Louisa, Priscilla, Nicola and Joaquin for their impressive and inspiring work.

Last month, CHANGE Festival took place on campus at the Warwick Arts Centre. This new, not-for-profit arts festival featuring over 20 events brought together shows, talks, comedy and workshops, with the aim to inspire visitors to imagine a better, more positive future for all.

GSD students were involved in both the organisation of the thought-provoking festival and the events themselves. Maddie Booth, a final year Politics, International Studies and GSD student, worked with CHANGE Festival's producer Becky Burchell to bridge the gap between the University and the festival. Maddie was also the Events Co-ordinator in the weeks leading up to the festival. Ellie Church, a final year Economic Studies and GSD student was also involved, sitting on the Council of the Future over the course of the festival.

Recently published in the interdisciplinary journal Global Health Action, Assistant Professor Dr Marco J Haenssgen in Global Sustainable Development discusses and exemplifies how common evaluation criteria used in international development aid can encourage more transparent and balanced assessments of public engagement with research.

The inaugural Warwick Climate Negotiating Forum (WCNF) took place at the University across two days last month. Run by students and led by GLOBUS Warwick, the student-run online journal at the School for Cross-faculty Studies, this project was the first of its kind at the University. The event gave students the opportunity to experience global climate negotiations first-hand, in a setting that encouraged a rounded learning experience by inviting guest speakers and offering a number of workshops.

The Political Ecologies of the Far Right conference, taking place from 15-17 November 2019, is an interdisciplinary academic-activist event organised by the Human Ecology Division at Lund University. The conference is in collaboration with The Zetkin Collective, a group of scholars, activists and students working on the political ecology of the far right, and the Centre for Studies of Climate Change Denialism at Chalmers University.

The conference will explore:

Two trends (which) intersect in the present: rapidly rising temperatures and rapid advances of the far right. What happens when they meet?

During the next three days, we will explore this formidable conundrum, and consider together what is to be done, both in terms of research but also in terms of practice. We aim to make this conference a platform to bring together both academics and activists to meet, share learnings, network, build alliances, and start unlikely conversations. They need to happen. This is the first systematic inquiry into the political ecology of the far right in the twenty-first century.

Dr Leon Sealey-Huggins, an Assistant Professor in Global Sustainable Development, will be the keynote speaker at the conference delivering a talk entitled “Between apocalypse and survival: the violence of climate breakdown in, and for, the Caribbean” from 5:30pm-6:30pm on Saturday 16 November 2019. Dr Leon Sealey-Huggins will also be part of the roundtable session and final discussion from 2:45pm-4:30pm on Sunday 17 November 2019.

Substantial flooding in parts of the UK has led to people being evacuated from homes and disruption to travel. Dr Jonathan Clarke, a Senior Teaching Fellow in Global Sustainable Development, argues that the benefits of preparing for floods have been evident for a while, but uncertainty as to where responsibility lies hinders progress.

On Friday 20 September 2019, globally coordinated student strikes took place to protest the lack of government action to combat the climate crisis. On this day, staff and students from across the University took to the Piazza to join the strike. An announcement shown on the Big Screen from the University’s Provost Professor Christine Ennew revealed that the University of Warwick had declared an official climate emergency. In the declaration, the University has shown commitment to zero net carbon from direct emissions and from the energy purchased by 2030, and to zero net carbon from direct and indirect emissions by 2050.